(REVISED) Operation : Shadows
by Agent-MC-SkyeHill
Summary: "Join us and have your genetics modified or spend the rest of you life in a cell with no other human interaction and no internet or electronics. Basically hell, she had summarised." Skye gets picked up by the team but this time things are slightly more different. Skye chooses her ultimatum wisely and now faces the results. AU Skye/Bobbi; Maria/Sharon; Natasha/May. Maria/Skye Cent
1. Chapter 1

Operation: Shadows

Chapter 1: Decisions

 **January 3rd 2004**

 **MARIA**

Maria Hill walked quickly through the quiet hallways of the Triskelion. The dimly lit hallways only further emphasised the early hours of the morning as most agents were sleeping soundlessly in the bunks that she was quietly walking by. Despite the Triskelion being located in a central area, many agents did not have homes placed here, many were visiting, so they simply had several floors dedicated to living areas for these agents, which were easily located on B1-B4. Near the entrance of the building, therefore reduced the amount of effort to climb into a bed after a mission – it also reduced the amount of blood scattered over the Triskelion. A win-win situation for everyone involved.

Most agents that lived in the Triskelion knew of the secret basement levels, that went pasted B1-B4. There was a large hanger area one floor under the living area and slightly to the right in order for it to be directly under the bay that the Triskelion was located next to. It was surprisingly easy to hide this hanger from most of their agents, Fury had plans for a future holding area of Helicarriers, although, the fact that it is a secret from most of their agents at the moment led Hill to believe that it would be something more.

Underneath all of this, was more floors dedicated to highly classified operations, ones that mainly involved human experimentation. That was were she was heading to as she stepped into the elevator with a small sigh. She did the overly complicated security sequences to allow her access to the proper panel for the elevator so that she could choose the correct floor and not just end up at B4. She was at B1 now and there was no stairs to take her any further down after B4.

Maria leaned against the wall of the lift as she mused over everything she knew about her current project. It was given to her before she was declared Deputy Director, which happened just over six months ago – which was insane to think about. She was the youngest deputy director since S.H.I.E.L.D started up, she also stands by that she is also the only deputy director to put up with an insane amount of bullshit.

Once she had been read upon everything that S.H.I.E.L.D was doing, or has done, she was seriously questioning the sanity and paranoia of her director, Nick Fury, but she shrugged and went along with it. The more she spent re-reading over everything and experience what it was like to be the Deputy Director, she began to understand why Fury was doing what he was during. So she kept her mouth shut and followed her orders.

Her current orders? Proceed with the second trials of her human experimentation project. Their first group of their current trial had went about as good as it would get and if their second group goes as smoothly as their first, she was under orders to start building her shadow teams.

The doors pinged and she walked out to her floor after doing a retinal scan at the entrance. She held back a smile as she saw the floor that was dedicated to her operation. It was dimly lit when you first walked into it, narrow and winding corridors that seemed to lead to nowhere. A good tactic incase someone managed to get down here without permission. It would hopefully keep them confused until they could escort them out of the floor.

Some of the corridors led to dead ends, the others led to rooms that helped enhance their operation. Bedrooms, a living area, a nature garden (extremely essential, including the zen part of the garden. Totally not because Maria enjoyed coming down here in the early mornings to do Tai-Chi when she could). There was also the labs and a large, open gymnasium.

It was everything that they needed to make sure that this went successfully.

Currently they were keeping it small, it was not something they wanted to get out. Only a handful of scientist to deal with their volunteers and monitor them and the volunteers themselves knew that this operation existed. The volunteers basically lived down here until they were given the okay to resume their normal lives as S.H.I.E.L.D agents, which was the need for a living area.

Maria strode confidently down one of the corridors which lead to a living area and resisted the urge to smile at the four agents that were sprawled out on the floor as a fifth person watched over them with amusement. She had been working with them for the past year, making sure that they were ready for the experiment as well as helping to prepare for future agents. All six of them agreed that they had wanted everything to go smoothly as it could if their batch turned out be successful.

"We have the go ahead from Fury." She announced, not explaining further as they sat up with a grin. Honestly, they reminded her of children, not the stone cold, _adult_ , agents she once knew them as.

Currently in front of her were her top agents for communications, strategy, espionage and specialists. Tobias Smith, Victoria Hand, Natasha Romanoff and Jayden Sanders.

"Great, we get tiny little beta's." Natasha responded with a grin.

Maria raised an eyebrow "No, everyone else get's one. You couldn't approve of a beta. So no Beta for Natasha." she replied smugly.

"Well, maybe you should have supplied me with better candidates." Natasha grumped.

Maria just rolled her eyes at Natasha behaviour "We're starting the trial tonight, or rather, right now. They are still in their bunks, correct? Go collect your beta and take them to the labs. We will get them prepped and started on the first injection." Maria instructed them. The remaining three nodded as they went to go collected their chosen candidate for the trial.

"So what about me?" Natasha drawled, lying lazily back on her hands.

Maria glanced at the fifth person in the room to see what they wanted to do. Someone many believed to be withering away from their former glory in a care home, unable to remember the greatness they had achieved.

It couldn't be further from the truth.

"I would suggest that she watches and learns for when she picks a suitable candidate." The fifth person said.

Maria nodded "Alright, lets go Romanoff. Time to get make some baby wolves, light, that came out wrong." Maria finished with a groan as she turned on her heel and headed to the labs to commence phase two of Operation: Shadows.

* * *

 **September 14th 2013**

 **SKYE**

The gentle hum of the plane did little to ease her conflicted thoughts. She lay quietly on the bed, staring blankly up at the heavily reinforced room. Cage. Apparently hacking into a super secrete spy agency (and maybe releasing some very sensitive information), that half the world didn't even know existed, can get you a lifetime in a maximum security cell, and, not with the normal government. That would be too easy going. No, it has to be a maximum security cell within the super secrete spy agency you just hacked into.

Apparently breaking into a super secret spy agency with an old mac, in a dingy (deeply loved) van with some borrowed Wi-Fi from the nearby coffee shop warrants a job offer at said super secret spy agency. If you could call it a job that is.

Join us and have your genetics modified or spend the rest of you life in a cell with no other human interaction and no electronics. Basically hell, she had summarised. She moved slowly to lie on her side, looking at the bland metallic interview table. She was given 24 hours to make her choice with a little glimpse into the life she would have if she choose to go to jail. If she were honest, she didn't think she would last the 24 hours, she was already going insane with boredom and possible withdrawals with the way her hands were shaking or that could just simply be the nerves of the decision she is about to make.

It's not exactly easy to decided to give up your life in one way or another to someone, something, else. Be held prisoner for the rest of your life or work for us for the rest of your life, either way she was committing herself to this super secret spy agency so she might as well do it and be on good terms with them, maybe they would give her unrestricted access to the internet at all times and basically have freedom to do whatever she wanted. She would have to enquire about that when she told them her decision.

Sighing, she swung her legs over the side of the bed, reluctantly shifting her body in order to sit up, her hands were placed lazily behind her on the bed in an attempt to appear calm and collected as she stared with an almost bored expression at the one way mirror. Unsure as to whether or not there was someone on the other side, she simply raised and eyebrow and called;

"Hello? Anyone there? Ready to tell you guys my decision, kinda get the feeling that you guys already knew what I was going to choose before you even met me, cause after all, you guys are a super secrete spy agency."

Her eyes wandered over the room till she found the camera and stared at it for a few moments, hoping that someone would soon come relieve her of her boredom and from being in this damn cage. It reminded her of some bad times.

"Fine, don't come and hear my wonderful decision! I'll just here and sulk" She grumbled to herself, glancing hopefully at the door.

No such luck.

"Urgh" She groaned, flopping herself down onto the bed. She was acting like a child and she knew it but it was extremely annoying to just be kept here by herself when there was so much to explore.

 _'Curiosity killed the cat'_

She scowled, stupid nuns and their damn sayings (logically, she knew that everyone said that but she was still going to blame the nuns that made her childhood a living hell) but in all honesty, her curiosity was causing all these annoying feelings of restlessness, which was no doubt going to get her killed of boredom (okay maybe a slight over exaggeration but again, evil nuns.)

Finally the door opened quietly as a middle aged man walked in, holding onto a file as he gestured for her to sit in the seat at the table. She eyed the man, what was his name again? Coleslaw? No, who has a surname like? Colemen? No wait it was Coulson, Agent Coulson. She muttered under her breath about the chair at the table looking extremely cold as she sunk into the chair. She stared at the file before lifting her eyes to meet Coulson's, he gave her a small smile as he opened the file.

"So, Skye, I take it you have made a decision?" He asked kindly, making eye contact with her, no doubt to try and put her at ease and damn it, it was working. She relaxed slightly into her chair and nodded.

"Yeah, I realised either way I'm committing the rest of my life to this super secret spy agency of yours, might as well commit myself willingly and be on the good side where there is hopefully unrestricted access to the internet?" She replied, side eyeing him with slight hopefulness.

Coulson let out a laugh, it seemed so full of optimism and happiness and all that mushy stuff. Skye found it weird considering his line of work, she always thought these people had low chuckle if they had to laugh at all, maybe an eye roll to go with it. Coulson seemed genuine in his laugh that she fought to keep a smile off her on face.

"Yes, you will have unrestricted access, I would be worried if you didn't because what you are going to do for us requires it. We need a hacker on this team and I think you are the right person for that. You think outside the box, you don't think like an agent, not yet at least, and that is exactly what this team needs right now. I know Agent May had some conditions on you joining the team, can I take it that it also means you have accepted Agent May's conditions as well?" He asked with a hint of curiosity.

Skye just nodded in response, biting her lip nervously, Agent May had came in after Coulson left, staring down at her with unforgiving, cold eyes and told her the catch of her joining S.H.I.E.L.D. She was to have genetics modified _slightly._ The wayAgent May had said 'slightly' with a quirk of her lips had filled her with dread and worry. Even if she attempted to tell herself that she wasn't, that she was tougher than some genetic modification, the predatory glint in Agent May's eyes would make her rethink everything. Another catch was that she was not to tell Coulson what this condition was exactly, only that there was a condition to her accepting the job at S.H.I.E.L.D and that was all he was to be told. It confused her and kept her mind preoccupied for the first couple of hours of her brief captivity till she finally summarised that Coulson did not know that S.H.I.E.L.D was modifying the DNA of some of their agents. It was an interesting realisation, one that she stored away for future use.

"Excellent" He said with a grin and pushed the file towards her "This is yours to read as soon as possible. Welcome to S.H.I.E.L.D Skye, let's go get your stuff and move you in"

She gave a small smile and followed him out the cage, mentally flipping off the cage that she was leaving behind. Not that what she was walking into was much better, she was just leaving one prison for another, the second was just a lot more subtle about it, surrounding her with the other agents but she knew better, she couldn't actually leave this place without being escorted most likely and if she were to ever leave, maybe for a holiday or something, she would be constantly supervised. Her every moved watched, and if she put one toe out of line she would land right back at the plane, probably with no more holidays. That was a depressing thought.

She followed Coulson silently as he pointed out everything on the plane, he was very enthusiastic about the entire thing.

"I requested half of this stuff myself, it was a presents of sort from the director of S.H.I.E.L.D, guess he felt like he owed me one after I was killed in action" He explained in a simple tone, as if it was an everyday occurrence to die.

"Wait, what? You were killed?" Skye asked incredulously, stopping to stare at him.

"Yeah, I was dead for 8 seconds" He replied with a grin. Skye stared at him, how exactly was that amusing?

"Now come on, I need to show you were you will be bunking whilst working with us." he continued walking, monitoring with his hand for her to follow, which she reluctantly obeyed.

He led her to a small open area with a set up of a regular living room with cubical to the left side and a kitchen to the right. He motioned to the cubicles;

"That is where most of you sleep, the pilot, that's Agent May, and myself have different living areas, Agent May's are closer to the cock pit in case of emergencies and mine is near my office. You will be sleeping here with Agent's Fitz, Simmons and Ward. The last one on the left is the only one that is free" He explained, waving his hands towards the end cubical. Coulson talked a lot with his hands, Skye noted dully.

She moved slowly towards the cubical, opening it with caution. It was cosy. A single bed pressed up against the far corner, a night stand next to it, a wardrobe at the bottom of the room with a small desk next to it with a chair tucked neatly under it, she placed the file that Coulson gave her on the desk. It was very compacted but it was nice.

She turned back to Coulson with a small smile, "It's very cosy" she commented, Coulson grinned and then motion to the figures caring a box and bags that were coming into view.

"Agent's Fitz, Simmons and Ward kindly brought your stuff up for you"

Skye groaned, letting her head fall forward slightly "Not that I'm not grateful or anything but like, my stuff is private and you just went looking through all of it."

"Simmons packed all your clothes to make it less of an invasion of privacy, although I fail to see how packing clothes can be seen as an invasion of privacy because..." The Scottish agent, Fitz, began.

"Fitz, do be quiet, lots of people see it as an invasion of privacy!" Agent Simmons reprimanded in a very lovely English accent.

Man, Skye was going to love it here, especially if those two just talked forever. They had such soothing voices mixed with a different accent than she was used too made things a lot more bearable. She felt like the two of them could tell her she was about to die a very painful death and she would be fine with it because of their damn voices.

"Erm, thanks guys, I'll just take them for here" She replied awkwardly, reaching for her bag that hanged loosely on Simmons shoulders. Simmons smiled politely at her and opened the door to her little bedroom as she took the box off of Fitz. Ward just walked wordlessly into her room, casually dumping her box onto the bed and left. Skye frowned, about to yell at the rude asshole who was not being careful with her stuff.

"Oh don't mind him, he's just not used to working as a team yet. He's kind of like a lone wolf" Simmons said, sharing an amused look with Fitz, both their eyes were lit up in a mischievous amusement, an inside joke that only the two of them seemed to get.

Coulson chuckled "I'll let FitzSimmons settle you in, I need to go have a little chat with certain people" and with that he walked away.

Skye stared after him before turning to the two agent's next to her "he's gonna yell at people right? The was the polite way of saying I'm going to yell at someone, right? And does everyone just refer you to as FitzSimmons? Like you are one person?" Skye fired out, staring intently at the two, who to their credit did not seem flustered by the question.

They just grinned as they responded; "Most people just refer us as FitzSimmons, we've been working together since we started the academy together, sometimes people call us the science twins, personally that's my favourite one and I don't think Coulson is capable of yelling at people from what I've seen, the only person likely to yell at someone in anger on this plane is Ward I believe" Simmons replied, the smile never wavering from her place, her eyes lit with excitement and curiosity.

"Yeah most likely Ward, May would just do the stare thing and you would cower to her and Coulson does the "I'm not angry just disappointed" tone of voice when reprimanding someone, that one is the worst." Fitz rambled, easily picking up where Simmons left of.

"Well we will let you get settled then Skye! I believe Agent May is coming to talk to you at some point regarding the condition of you joining S.H.I.E.L.D" Simmons cheerily replied, waving as she left, grabbing Fitz's arm and dragging him with her. He gave her a lazy smile and half hearted wave as he left.

"Wait...you know about the conditions? Simmons!" Skye called after them, confused. How did Simmons and Fitz know what her condition was and Coulson didn't? Maybe they didn't know and all they knew was that there was a condition...but they seemed to know what it was, the glint in their eyes gave it away. Groaning as the confusion that this agency constantly left her in, she walked into her bedroom, moving her stuff onto the floor and flopped onto the bed, determined to get a nap in before she had to interact with anyone else.

Apparently luck was not on her side.

"Rookie. Get up, we need to talk" Came the stern voice of Agent Melinda May.

* * *

 **September 14th 2014**

 **NATASHA (et al)**

Natasha sat sprawled out in her favourite chair in Maria's office, otherwise known as Maria's big chair. The nice, fancy one that Fury got her after a particularly difficult mission. Maria refused to let anyone sit in it, of course Natasha was always the exception. Maria sat on the floor, her head leaning back against the chair as they sat in a circle in her office. They were discussing the latest arrival on Coulson's plane, an unknown hacker that Fury wanted to become a part of the programme and to join her pack.

Joining her and Maria was the other three alphas; Victoria, Jayden and Tobias, and of course Peggy was there. Maria was only there because she was the Deputy Director, but even still she was keeping out of the conversation, only supplying information when asked. The beta seemed quite content to just take it easy, lying against the chair. Natasha shifted and slide her into Maria's hair, slowly running it through and watched in amusement as the women turned to mush in her hands.

"Ngh." Maria mumbled out, eyes closing in pure delight. "This is unfair."

"I can stop if you want." Natasha replied teasingly, feeling Maria tense up slightly.

"That's not what I said. Just that it's unfair that you have effect on me. So good though." Maria groaned out. The simplest things made that women turn into a groaning mess, Natasha thoughts fondly. It wasn't often that the two of them got to relax like this. Maria was too busy running S.H.I.E.L.D and Natasha was busy running the pack and doing missions which often lead to conflicting schedules, which meant that Maria missed a lot of the pack bonding time and missed out on time to just relax with everyone.

"Mmm, you love it." Natasha replied simply, not feeling up for tormenting the women when she was submissive like this. It just ruined the mood for everyone when that happened.

"So Natasha, are you happy to have the girl in your pack?" Peggy asked, letting the alpha and beta have their moment. She knew that things have been rocky between the two of them and that it was causing irritation as well as causing Maria to snap out more than usual.

"Yes. Always happy to have another stray." Natasha said with a wry smirk, she glanced back down at Maria, half tempted to embarrass the women and pull the hard ass into her lap and cuddle her. She decided to leave it for the moment, focusing on the issue at hand.

"Why does Nat get the new kid and not one of us?" Tobias said with a small frown

"Because Tobby, she's on the plane with Coulson and May. It make sense for her to join my pack because she has May there to help guide her and create the connection with us rather than just give her the serum and leaving her to feel out of place with two members of my pack and one member of Tori's pack." Natasha explained lazily "Plus Fury wants to keep her close and seems to think the best way to do that is keep her near Coulson. He can think twice about monitoring her now that she's mine." Natasha finished with a slight possessive growl.

"Suppose." Tobby sulked caused Tori and Jayden to roll their eyes. Tobby was constantly after more pack members to try and come out on top.

Maria made a small noise of distress in the back of her throat. This is always where things became complicated. Maria had her orders from Fury that she had to follow but there was also Natasha, who gave her orders that she had to follow along with pack loyalty. It made her stress so they decided to try and keep Maria out of the lop when it came to something against Fury's orders to allow her plausible deniability.

Natasha hushed her softly, pulling her up into the chair and gently guided the women to curl around her. She hummed softly when Maria just complied with her movement rather than fight them. It was a good sign.

"Technically you aren't going against Fury's orders, he never gave you any in regards to Skye other than to make sure she was on our pack. We won't discuss this further till you're gone, okay?" Natasha soothed, ignored the other members in the room. It used to be so uncomfortable, to be so vulnerable around other people but after ten years of this, it was easy to show this caring side. No one ever cared, especially after walking in on each other doing much more private things.

Maria nodded her head, resting it against Natasha chest and made herself comfortable. She honestly could not be bother moving from this spot, she was that tired. Especially after the month she was having. Natasha went back to running her hand through her hair as she made small talk with the other wolves, as they tried to lull Maria into a sleep.

It wasn't long till the women was sleeping soundlessly in her arms, curled up tightly against her side.

"So, now that the beta is asleep. Let's continue. What's our plan with Fury and the kid?" Jayden questioned, sitting forward.

Peggy frowned slightly "There must be something about her, other than the fact she hacked S.H.I.E.L.D that makes him want to keep her close. We should get May to investigate, but this also means that she has to get the girls trust and not report so truly on her and prevent Coulson from doing so when she can." Peggy said, looking slightly perplex.

The others nodded, it seemed like a good plan.

"Alright then, May has a vial of my blood. I'll tell her to give it to Skye tomorrow. We can discuss this more once Skye has been turned." Natasha said casually, indicating to the end of the conversation.

Everyone nodded and stood. There wasn't much to discuss until they knew more about Skye, and only time would tell them.

"No worries, we'll leave you to your cuddle session with S.H.I.E.L.D'S most hard ass agent." Victoria teased, causing them to all roll their eyes.

"Don't let her hear you say that, you know how it makes her." Peggy reprimanded lightly. Maria was definitely the black sheep of their pack at the moment was often feeling on the other side of things, even after ten years of being in the pack and they were all trying to rectify it, but it was hard. Peggy sighed and walked over to Natasha and Maria, placing a small kiss of both the heads, gently cupping Maria's sleeping face and looked at her sadly.

"She'll be fine when she wakes up." Natasha whispered softly, noticing the sad look on the older women's face. Peggy regarded her carefully before nodding and walking away.

"Send her to me once she wakes up, Natasha." She commanded as she left with the others.

Natasha sighed and held Maria closer and pressing her nose against Maria's hair and closed her eyes. It has been a very long day.


	2. Chapter 2

Operation: Shadow

Chapter 2

 **January 23th 2004**

 **MARIA**

The trials were going perfectly, their current volunteers were taking to their experiment brilliantly and with their alpha's, it seemed to be going much smoother than when all the alpha's were fighting for the comfort of one person.

Currently the beta's are on their third injection. Their minds have already been broken down and built back up again to handle the mental strain of the wolf inside them as well as their pack mentality. They've experienced the breakdown of their immune system, only for it to be built back up much stronger. They had enhanced senses as well as impressive healing abilities that they would unfortunately have to test out once the change was complete. Right now, the beta's were building their bond with their alpha and were curled around each other in the living area, watching TV. Natasha was sprawled out by herself on one of the couches and every so often she would glance over at her fellow alpha's with what Maria could only describe as jealousy.

Something she would have to keep an eye out for. She could not have Natasha go off the rails because she refused to pick a beta when the others managed to pick one.

Sighing, she finished the last of her report on her wolves and needed to head to the lab to get the technical information before she could pass the report onto Fury. She stood, stretching herself out with a small groan of appreciation as her joints cracked. She wasn't exactly sitting in the most healthiest of ways.

"I'll be back in five minutes, just going to get some data." She announced as she left the room.

She walked along the empty corridor to reach the labs, her heels clicking lightly with every step. The quietness of an empty S.H.I.E.L.D corridor always put her on the edge, she was getting more and more used to it however, you had to when working in an unknown floor. So when she thought she saw the shadows move, she simply put it down to being paranoid.

It wasn't until she reached the labs did she realise her mistake. Always trust your gut, she thought to herself, no matter how silly it seems because standing in front of her was the last group of agents, Group B-10. Well...what remained of them anyway.

There was five in total, all standing awkwardly as their limbs struggled to support them. Their eyes wide and twitchy as they snarled at her. Their skin was worse than when she last saw them. There were blotches everywhere and the skin was peeling in various places, she was almost sure she could see bone in some of the missing patches of skin.

Group B-10 were classified as a fail. They had managed to successfully transform into their wolf forms, however it came at a great cost. They were unable to shift back to their human form for an extended period of time without killing themselves. From what the scientist had been able to gather from them was that when they experienced the breakdown in their mind and nervous system, it never properly built itself back together. Leaving them vulnerable and weak to the outside world around them. They only way they were able to live without pain was in their wolf forms or stay inside forever, but even then, there were documents of pain being felt.

Essentially they were able to create super powered wolves, not super powered humans with the ability to change into a wolf. The exact opposite of what they wanted.

Maria walked cautiously into the lab and set the report on the table. She watched them warily as they struggled to hold themselves up and continued the god awful snarling. They weren't saying anything – not yet – but they followed her every moment as she prayed to every deity she knew that Peggy and the others would notice that she was not back yet, or notice that there were other people in here. They had enhanced sense, so hopefully it would not take them too long to notice.

It was daunting, Maria would not lie to herself and try to play down the situation she was in. She knew that unless the pack arrived within the next five minutes, there was a slim chance she would make it out alive.

"You, y-y-you did this to us." The man on the right snarled, Ben, she thinks. It was hard to tell who was who anymore. Most of their defining features appear to have disappeared.

"You volunteered." Maria corrected him "You knew of the consequences. All of you did."

All of them snarled in sync and took several steps forward, looking very much like a pack of wolves closing in on their prey.

"You never said this would happen!" The middle one roared, his eyes wide. Alex, she thought.

Maria took a small step backwards, a pathetic attempt to put distance between her and them. Where the hell was the others? They weren't exactly being quiet! She carefully thought out her answer, no point in trying to aggravate them more. "No one knew exactly how the serum would effect you, we tried to prepare you as much as we could for what could happen. We never foresaw this. We are sorry, we tried to make it up to you, tried to help you live this rest of your life in peace." Maria said, slightly pleading with them to understand.

"You call this living?" A women to the left scream "We can't see our families! We can't go out in public! We have to rely on S.H.I.E.L.D for food drops! You think this is living?" She raged.

It seemed to be the final straw for them as they launched themselves upon her, shifting half way through their jump and the next thing Maria finds herself doing is screaming in pain.

Pain. Pain. Pain.

She could feel the way their teeth easily slid into her muscles, gripping, pulling, tearing. The way her body all too easily gave parts of itself up, like the blood and muscles was not what kept it alive. She felt the way her nerves screamed at her, they way her brain pleaded with her to just move. They way she failed to respond to any of the signal other than screaming and begging for mercy. Even that was soon cut off as sharp claws swopped across her jaw, unhinging it and left only with the ability to make high pitched sounds in the back of her throat. Her screams forever trapped. Her pleads going nowhere and her brain shutting down.

Pain. It was all she could register. It was all over her body, engulfing every nerve, even after the teeth and claws had stopped.

* * *

Peggy head shot up as soon as the first scream sounded. She glanced at the others, looking confused, maybe it was a prank. Those thoughts quickly diminished as soon as the first smell of copper hit her nose. Blood was never involved in a prank and she quickly shot of her chair, following the screams that were coming non-stop now. The screams, which were undoubtedly Maria's.

The others followed her fast pace as she ran into the labs, the source of the screams and froze. For a second. The scene in front of her was horrifying, blood and bit's of flesh were everywhere, but she could not dwell on it. She moved swiftly, shifting into her wolf and easily tore the wolves off of Maria.

Thoughts seeping into her brain that were not her own signalled to her that the others had shifted and were taking care of the other wolves as she moved towards Maria. She dropped to her knees and she did not even know where to begin. The women was covered in blood, skin was hanging off of her in several places and her jaw was a mess. Judging by the pool of blood that both she and Maria were in, she doubted that the women would survive.

Peggy tried to stop the tears from forming as she placed her hand gently against Maria's face, only for her to whimper and slowly jerk away from her touch.

"Sh, shhh, it's okay Maria." She cooed, moving to stroke her hair, hoping that she would find that more comforting. "We'll get you fixed up, we'll make it better. I just need you to hang on, stay awake. Just fight for a few more minutes" She gently begged. She glanced up to a silent room with Natasha standing in the middle, staring at Maria in shock.

"Natasha." Peggy said firmly "Get me the first dosage of serum and an empty syringe. Now!" she commanded, making it easier for Natasha to respond whilst she was in shock.

The women moved stiffly, gathering everything that Peggy asked for and knelt down beside them and handed her the equipment.

"I'll take her." Natasha said quietly, reaching out with one hand to gently touch Maria's face.

Peggy nodded, gesturing for Natasha to hold out her arm in order for her to withdraw blood and then mixed it in with the serum. She held the needle near Maria's neck as the women's half lidded eyes focused on the syringe. If it was possible, more fear appeared on her face causing both Natasha and Peggy to give small reassurances.

"It's going to be okay Maria, I said we would make you better. We're making you better." Peggy cooed as she injected the serum into Maria, praying that it would work and fix the damages.

"We should move her." Natasha mumbled from beside her, her hands sliding gently under Maria and pulling her up with Peggy supporting Maria's head. "She's got to be in so much pain." She whispered, the protectiveness of an alpha already showing.

Peggy sighed as she helped carry Maria to the medical bay, placing her down onto a spare bed. She took a step back to fully survey the damage that happened to the women. Now that the pool of blood was gone, she could see the wounds more clearly now. Maria seemed to have had her legs broken, her shoulders pulled out of their sockets and the ligaments holding them together seems to only be a thread now. Her jaws was stiffly shut at an odd angle, indicating that it was broken as well. Her chest just seemed to be a mess. Those monsters gave no mercy and appeared to have literally shredded the women's chest, only just missing her vital organs. Or rather, was that intentional? Peggy frowned at that line of thought. Why would they intentionally miss her vital organs but cause this amount of damage?

She glanced over at Natasha, the women was cleaning Maria's wounds with a frown and wrapping them up. She gently pushed her thoughts to Natasha, to see what her thoughts were on the matter. Natasha's head snapped up and tilted slightly as she carefully regarded Peggy's thoughts.

"They might have done it to turn her into a wolf. They would have no idea that we have basically perfected the serum and would still thinking we are using the one they got and wanted to give her a taste of her own medicine. They couldn't exactly get to you, you've already been changed, so they only one they could really get revenge on would be Maria." Natasha theorised, looking at Peggy.

A frown seemed to permanently reside on Peggy's face as she regarded Maria, thinking of what to do. "Check her blood for how much serum is in it, and then give her another dosage of your blood, Natasha, just incase. We might have given her two doses of the serum by accident. That might be too much for her body. We need to monitor her closely over the next few days. I'll call Nick and the scientist, see what they have to say." Peggy said, leaning heavily on the wall near Maria's bed.

Maria was in for a rough ride.

* * *

 **September 14th 2013**

 **SKYE**

" _Rookie. Get up, we need to talk"_

Skye groaned and turned her head to face the stern face of Melinda May, her chestnut hair fell over her eyes, distorting her view. Another groan.

"Stupid hair can't even fall in the right way" Skye grumbled, pushing her hair out of her face before sitting up to view the agent in her doorway, "oh please, do come in Agent May" Skye remarked sarcastically, guesting to her tiny bedroom "make yourself at home"

May walked into the room, her eyes never leaving Skye as she sat down on the chair besides the next, Skye raised an eyebrow in an attempt to appear confident. She know she wasn't fooling anyone, she could feel the trembles going through her body as she waited to hear what was going to happen to her.

May felt a pang of sympathy for the girl as the nervous energy just rolled of off her, going through this procedure was not fun, you felt bare, like all your thoughts and feelings were laid out before you for everyone to see. She contained the shiver that threatened to appear at the remembrance of her own time going through the transformation. The worst two weeks of her life. Reliving every horrible memory and then reliving it with someone else watching them with you.

May watched Skye squirm under her gaze, waiting for her to demand an explanation.

"Alright, alright I give, what exactly is going to happen to me? Are I going to sprout another head? Leg? Arm? What?" Skye blurted out, her hands moving wildly with each word, her eyes wide and scared as she waited for an explanation. "Should have chosen jail" she muttered under her breath, running her hand through her hair.

"No" May replied calmly "now if you would calm yourself, I'll tell you exactly what is expected of you and of the procedure"

Skye nodded, biting her lip softly and got her self comfortable on the bed before giving May her full attention.

"The procedure involves a series of jags, one which you will get after we have finished our talk, you are to get a jag every two days; each jag provides a part of the genetic modification, doing this way is easier on the body and has given us the highest success rate-" May began to explain.

"Sorry, success rate? Do people die from taking this?" Skye asked worriedly

May stared at Skye with irritation, waiting for the rookie to acknowledge her own mistake before continuing. Skye lowered her head in apology before darting her eyes to May, May nodded, accepting the apology, musing in amusement that the girl would fit right in with the others.

"Now, as I was saying, this way provides us with the highest success rate, lowest death and highest full transformation" she said, stressing the last few words as an answer to Skye's questions "I'm not going to lie rookie, the procedure will make you feel like shit. You will feel naked, as though all your thoughts, feelings and memories have been on display for everyone and anyone to read and do as they please with them. You will feel sick as your immune system will be down after the first jag. The first jag breaks down several important systems in your body and rebuilds them up stronger and better, so this means take care of yourself for the first two days, eat properly and stay warm. Simmons will be monitoring you for these two days. Then the next 7-" Skye chocked, glancing up in surprise, mouthing '7' in shock, May continued as if nothing happened – "jags will be preparing your body for the transformation, adding and deleting parts of your mind to create the necessary link and then in two weeks the transformation will be complete and you will meet the...head of this... team" May finished, the edges of her mouth twitching at amusement of the description she gave.

Skye stared at her in shock.

"Okay, okay, okay, first of all, SEVEN jags? I hate jags, I'll begrudgingly take one jag but seven?" Skye moaned "This is going to be the worst two weeks of my life" she pouted, before sitting up straighter, signifying that she had some serious questions. "So you've explained what's going to happen to me but you haven't told me what I'm going to become? Why would I need a link? And meddling with my brain? It sounds like you are forcing a thousand year evolutionary process within two weeks" Skye questioned, shifting to fold her legs in a basket, leaning her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands as she waited patiently for May to answer.

"You will become a wolf and yes, that is basically what we are doing. We need to create a link between you and the pack you will join as well as create the wolf instincts in your human form so that when you transform you wont give into your instincts as you will be used to them already. You will need to practice calming techniques starting from today, I suggest mediation or Tai Chi, Simmons can help you with the mediation or you can do Tai Chi with me. Any more questions?" May enquired in a bored tone, she was not really looking forward to another person joining their pack, especially since she would have to look after them as well as Fitz and Simmons, who were already a handful with their experiments and arguing over the simplest things. She knew this feeling would not last, their alpha did not enjoy pack members not getting on and their instincts as a wolf is to accept anyone that joins their pack and have some form of affection for them. Natasha gave specific instructions to her once she was informed that there was going to be a new member of their pack

" _Watch out for them, be their S.O, be a mentor, this girl isn't like the other agents. We have nothing on her and whilst I have no qualms about her joining our pack, I trust Furry to make the right choice, it makes me uneasy that we know nothing about it and it will be like pulling teeth to get any information from her. All we got so far is that she is an orphan before she turned one and you know how difficult they can be. Oh, and please look after Fitz and Simmons. Victoria is bitching and moaning that she is losing Simmons. So watch out for them and try and get them to stop doing those damn experiments."_

Very specific instructions.

May watched as Skye processed all of the information that she had given her, she watched as Skye pulled her bottom lip between her teeth in worry, the way one of her fingers began curling a stand of chestnut hair around it. Every action the girl was doing screamed how scared and worried she was. Maybe she should get FitzSimmons to talk to her, May is not very good with comforting those outside the pack.

"Hey" May started softly, placing a hand on Skye's knee "I'll send you FitzSimmons after dinner, they are the most recent ones to go through the transformation in the pack and closer to your age, they will be able to help you more, especially if you have questions about the technical side of the procedure. Now jag and then dinner"

Skye nodded, moving closer to May, pointing to her arm with a questioning look. May shook her head; "wrist" she said and reached into the bag that she brought with her, pulling out a sterilised needle, a clear liquid, a vile of blood and a wipe. May carefully moved the wipe across Skye's wrist, pulling a band around her arm, making her veins more visible, quickly finding the right vein, May carefully slide the needle into Skye's wrist, ignoring the wince from the rookie and injected the serum.

"Done. You will begin to feel like effects after dinner" May said, standing up and gathering her things as she began to leave. Pausing at the door, she turned to Skye who was watching her leave "One more thing Skye, I will be acting cold towards you and FitzSimmons. It's part of an act, I suggest you play along or face some serious consequences. You have thirty minutes until dinner" and with that, May left Skye alone with her thoughts.

"What have I done" Skye groaned, falling back onto her bed, her arm draped across her eyes in defeat. The burning need for May's approval slowly seeping into her bones.

* * *

After dinner, Skye went straight to her bunk, her face pale and mumbled about not being well. She dropped onto her bed, ignoring the sounds of her door opening as she fought to keep her food in her stomach. She did not want to have to clean up her own vomit.

The bed dipped down in two different places as FitzSimmons sat down. A hand was placed comfortingly on her stomach, slowly moving in circles. Skye groaned out in appreciation.

"This is the hard part, physically anyways" She heard Simmons whisper "It will last for two days and you have to keep eating or the chances of the success of the serum will plummet."

Skye whimpered "How can I eat if all I can do is lie here and try not to throw up what I've eaten? And is it just me or is it cold in here?" Skye complained, shifting to dry and get under her covers.

Simmons and Fitz moved off the bed and silently began to help Skye get comfortable and warm. Simmons tucked Skye under her covers, placing a soft kiss on her forehead and looked at Skye in concern. They were not part of the same immediate pack, but everyone was technically under one pack, but she was still unsure of how much comfort the girl would accept for her. It was worth a try anyways. Despite this being a natural part of the process, she still couldn't help but worry about the girl.

Simmons turned to Fitz with an apologetic expression "I think I'll just bunk in here for the next two days and look after her, I know you hate attempting to care for people who are ill and vomit. You hate vomit"

"That I do Jemma, that I do" he mumbled, fiddling with his hands as he threw nervous looks at Skye "I'll be in the lab working on the night night guns then" he announced, reaching for the door.

Simmons scoffed "We are not calling it the night night gun! I created half of it so therefore I have as much right to name it as you do!"

"Whatever Jemma, it's night night gun until you can think of something better" He called behind him teasingly as he left Skye's room.

"Bring my stuff!" Simmons called, closing Skye's door and sitting at the edge of the bed.

She placed her hand on Skye's side "You're going to be alright Skye, I'll be here all night watching you" she whispered.

"If you're gonna creep, then do it whilst under the covers and providing me with warmth." Skye grumbled, pulling back her covers to allow Simmons in. Simmons rolled her eyes with a smile and kicked of her shoes, crawling under the covers and pulling Skye close to her.

"Like this?" She teased, Skye nuzzled her head against the crook of Jemma's neck

"Exactly like this" She mumbled, a yawn escaping her mouth, fighting to keep her eyes open. It was somewhat comforting to lie besides Simmons, she probably would rather it was May, despite not knowing the other agent that well. Something about her seem much more trusting that Simmons. But Simmons will do.

"Go to sleep Skye, I've got you" Simmons whispered. She could feel the slight connection forming already. It was not as strong as a direct pack link, but the family link was there, letting her know that this was someone who was family.

The first jag did more than kill and rebuild systems within the body, it started the blueprint of the link so that when the second jag was administered, there would be nothing to resist the new instincts.

Fitz appeared soon, entering quietly, sensing the need for quietness and dropped off Jemma's stuff at the door with a quick glance at the girls on the bed before leaving.

* * *

Fitz knocked hesitantly on the door of the cockpit. May had been awfully cold towards them since the team was put together, whilst he knew why it was necessary, he missed the comfort that the older pack member provided. She made him feel less homesick and was great company whenever he and Simmons weren't glued to each other.

"Enter" He heard her call and he opened the door slowly and sunk into the cockpit, hesitantly throwing himself into the co-pilots chair.

"You're acting like a child." She reprimanded him lightly, turning on auto pilot and turned to face him. He just pouted in response.

"What's wrong Leo?" She asked, smiling a little at his name. It was a running joke in the pack that he had a name the represented lions when he turned out to be a wolf.

Fitz sighed dramatically, he knew he was being childish, he just missed being in a base where he could visit most of his pack and experiment to his hearts content and not have to hide the fact that he was close to anyone in his pack.

Melinda watched one of her pups carefully, before deciding it was the new arrangement that was bothering him. Fitz never took to change that well. Which led her to be slightly surprised that he hasn't complained about Skye joining the pack yet.

"It's this new arrangement, isn't it?" she enquired, Fitz nodded.

"I know it's childish to be so...aggravated by this change, but I hate having to pretend that I'm something that I'm not, that I've never met you before and that I can't do half the things that I can. I can defend myself and I don't like the idea of going on a mission and having to act like I can't protect myself. I look weak." He ranted, sliding down further in his chair in his anger. " I don't understand how Simmons is dealing with this so easily. Even with Skye, she is just acting like Skye apart of her pack, not ours. Why is she so close with her? She's going to hate it once she realises that there are different packs." He complained, partly on Skye's behalf towards the end.

"Simmons is throwing herself into her work in case you haven't noticed, demanding physicals for us all. She is able to accept Skye so easily at the moment because she looks at it as part of her job. To care for the sick, even if Skye isn't part of her pack, she part of the job and it makes it easier on her." Melinda explained calmly, wishing that she could comfort the pup in the usual ways. She settled for placing a hand on his knee, watching as he visibly relaxed. "You don't appear weak Leo, you appear as a normal scientist, the same as Simmons, valuing knowledge over fitness" she teased lightly. Fitz looked repulsed at that thought

"If Natasha ever, ever heard me say something like that or thought that I thought like that she would have me doing laps via push ups" Fitz complained, shuddering at the thought of their alpha and her focus on being physically fit and being able to defend themselves.

"I will not have members of my pack being unable to defend themselves in a simple situation" Fitz said, mimicking Natasha's slightly higher pitched voice. Melinda chuckled, she couldn't wait to tell her mate about that impersonation, it was very good.

"Good impression Fitz" She smiled at the young wolf, she leaned forward slightly, signalling a slight change in topics "Now, how do you feel about Skye joining our pack?" She asked curiously, she was never one to beat around the bush when it came to her pack's happiness and wellbeing. There have been a few times she has been very blunt with Maria and her eating and sleeping habits.

Fitz tensed slightly "I have no problem with her joining, I trust Natasha's judgement and Skye seems nice enough. It's just that we know nothing about Skye, all we know is that she is an amazing hacker and an orphan. She could pose a threat to our pack dynamic's. She doesn't know how we work and she might never understand how we work and upset the pack because she comes from a different background than all of us...other than that, I think she will be a good addition to the pack." Fitz replied, scrunching up his nose a little.

Melinda smiled and stood up, motioning for Fitz to copy, she wrapped her arms around her pup and pulled him close, rubbing his back soothingly. She could feel Fitz purring, the sound filled her with amusement and happiness. This is how her pups should be, happy and relaxed, not tensed and worried about things they shouldn't be worried about. She pressed her nose into his curly hair, not quite ready to let him go yet.

"Don't worry little lion, things will get better soon." She mumbled, placing a soft kiss on top of his head, pulling away from him, ignoring the pang of guilt she felt when she saw him pout "Now, go to sleep. I'm not having you mess up your sleep pattern again" she said sternly, looking at him in the eyes. He nodded and complied reluctantly.

"Night May" he mumbled, leaving the cockpit.

"Night little lion" She said softly, attempting to block out the raw emotions she felt after dealing with Fitz. She attempted to get back into character of "The Calvary", the cold, hardened by battle agent who did not comfort her agents and certainty did not give them little nicknames.

This might be tougher than she thought.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N:** Here we go! Third chapter up before I go to sleep because what better way to wake up than to wake up to favourites and comments? (One of us has to be confident that this fic is good and if its not going to be you guys then I guess it needs to be me!) But in all seriousness, any comments would be greatly appreciated and I understand that many of you may not have the time to do so or just plain don't want to but I would love to know if people are actually enjoying the changes that have been made so far!

Chapter Text

 **January 24th 2004**

 **MARIA**

Maria was currently occupying a large, king bed in Natasha's room as she slept through her recovery. After the first injection and dosage of Natasha's blood, she was on the fast track for recovery and after the first 24 hours her jaw was practically healed. It has been three days now and Maria drifts in and out of consciousness, automatically trying to hear the conversation around her, but it made no sense, it sounded like it was another language even though she knew it was English. It hurt her head too much to dwell on it and would try to go back into the blissful, painless sleep that she has been experience. Sometimes she woke up in the middle of the night, two bodies wrapped around her tightly, holding onto her as they slept and it did nothing to deter her from going back to sleep.

When she was awake, she was aware of the constant, dull ache of pain under her skin. As each day ended, a part of the ache would leave her. As each day ended, there was encouraging whispers in her ear to get better, to wake up, to show some sign of life other than her steady heartbeat.

On the fourth day, she finally woke up with a coherent thought in her head and the ability to understand what was going on around her.

Which meant she was well aware that there was five sets of eyes staring at her as she sat up in the bed. Blinking several times at them, she open and closed her mouth, just trying to think of something to say or just trying to come up with a reason as to why they were all watching her sleep.

"Uh?" Was all she ended up coming out with, she tilted her head in confusion. Everything felt confusing, things weren't making sense nor were her thoughts. It was frustrating. Nothing was going in order like she wanted to. She just woke up and now she was feeling this intense rage. Why?

She went to move but was stopped by one simple command.

"Don't move." Peggy said firmly and surprise took over Maria as her body froze of it's own accord.

Maria looked up fearfully at Peggy and the other four alphas. It was nothing like she ever experienced before. It was as if everything in her body was telling her to bow down, to listen to them, to submit to them. That they knew what was best and should follow their every order. Praise them. Worship them. Respect them. Fear them. It was a blur of emotions, each one making the situation a little clearer and making Maria more and more horrified.

"What did you do to me?!" Maria rasped out, her heart was racing and it felt like she couldn't breath. She already knew the answer, she just did not want to acknowledge it or even hear about it. She wanted to move, she wanted to run, she wanted to hide, she wanted to scream.

None of that was possible, all because Peggy told her not to move.

She was one of them.

Shit.

"I think you already know the answer dear." Peggy said softly, moving to seat on the edge of the bed, looking at her with concern.

Maria nodded slowly, a wave of calm washing over her preventing an outburst. She knew it was one of them and she knew that she couldn't fight it. After all, she had been studying the effects of the alpha command for the last few years. Although, their descriptions of what the alpha command felt like fell short. In fairness to them, they did tell her it was very hard to describe, it was like your entire body, you wants and needs were suddenly the wants and needs of your alpha and instead of being upset or angry, you were more than happy to go along, even if it meant going against something you believe in.

A part of her was happy to just go along with this, to go with the flow and follow the commands but another part of her realised that she wasn't an alpha but she outranked everyone in the room in the actual work place. It could cause conflicts, would they force her to make a different decision in regards to a mission, just because they don't agree with it? Or would she be allowed to make whatever decision she could in the work place? It still undermined her authority in S.H.I.E.L.D and no doubt Fury of her turning, does that mean he know thinks she is unacceptable to be deputy director? To be in charge of anything? Would she be still allowed to run Operation : Shadows?

It was all overwhelming, none of this was her fault, at least not directly, she covered her ass, she made sure everyone knew what they were getting into and yet people still decided to get revenge for something that they were explicitly told might happen.

Life sucks.

"Who would have thought, the deputy director pouts like a child." Tobias snickered, looking at the other alphas who mirrored his amusement.

Can she move yet? She really wants to punch Tobias.

Peggy regarded her carefully, looking for any signs that she might lash out or go into a sudden fit of rage, but the silent command that Natasha gave her to be calm seems to be working. Maria appeared calm, if not a little agitated by Tobias's comment. That was good, the next step was to tell Maria who her alpha was.

"You can move now, just try not to over do it. You were inches away from dying, after all." Peggy said, moving closer to the younger women to help her up with a soft smile.

Maria frowned at the remark, it wasn't her fault that she almost died. Plus she had a job to do, she couldn't exactly just lie in bed all day when she was clearly capable of moving. She opened her mouth to reply but was cut off by Natasha.

"Cut the crap Hill, we're inside your head now, I hope you know that. You're are going to be taking easy for the next week and no work. Even Fury agreed to it when he saw the state you were in." Natasha said, slinking down into the chair next to her bed.

'Well that sucks.' Maria thought, the frown permanently on her face. 'How come they get to be in her head but she can't be in theirs?' She was well aware that she was no doubt pouting and acting like a child but right now her emotions were all over the place and if Natasha could just reach a little bit over and touch her, then everything would be fine.

Oh shit.

Natasha was her alpha.

Well, that sorts out the problem of Natasha not having a beta.

Still leaves her in the shitty situation of yearning for Natasha to touch her.

Natasha smirked smugly as she moved closer to Maria, sitting on the bed and pressing against her side, causing her to sag and sigh with relief. 'Much better.' Maria thought, closing her eyes and resting her head on Natasha shoulders.

"This sucks." Maria said aloud, her eyes still closed in content. A lot of emotions were going through her head but she decided it was better to leave them for now and deal with them when she had some privacy in her own head.

"This is no walk in the park for me either, Hill. Think I want to be stuck with you as a beta?" Natasha teased, causing Maria to frown and roll her eyes before jabbing her elbow into the alpha's ribs.

"Jerk." She mumbled, not really having the motivation to be even slightly insulting towards the alpha. Great.

"How about you get some more sleep? Everything will be fine once you wake up." Natasha cooed, running her hand through the women's hair. Her protective and soft side coming out with the addition to her pack.

"Is that a suggestion or a command?" Maria mumbled, her eyes heavy.

"It can be a command if you don't go to sleep." Natasha threatened lightly.

Maria nodded, forcing her body to relax enough to fall asleep but still felt the need to rebel "I just woke up..."

"Sleep." Natasha said forcibly.

Maria let the command wash over her tired body as she easily fell into a deep sleep.

* * *

Despite Natasha saying that everything would be fine once she woke, Maria found everything not to be fine. In fact, it was going pretty terrible. Life as a wolf is not what she imagined, it involved become comfortable with being naked around other people very quickly and being vulnerable around them as well whilst maintaining an appropriate work relationship.

Maria often found herself flinching from Natasha's touch at work, especially when she had made the women do something she was not happy with, like making her go on a two week mission just a few weeks after Maria was given the all clear. Natasha protective, inner alpha protested at leaving Maria at such a vulnerable stage in their relationship, especially since Maria was still adjusting to life as a wolf. Natasha only going on the mission after both Peggy and Fury forced her to go.

Which led to another problem Maria was having. Maria was the one in control at work, but when it came to the wolves, Natasha, Victoria, Tobias and Jayden had more control and authority. It was causing problems in work with her telling them that they needed to do something, or do something a certain way; they would just smile at her and shake their heads as if she were a child playing a pretend game, or, they would roll their eyes and do it their own way. Maria honestly couldn't tell which one infuriated her more, only that it was stressing her out. How can Fury expect her to be a good commander if four of their high level agents refuse to listen to her and reject her command.

It really wasn't fair.

Maria felt like she had been saying that a lot, but it honestly wasn't. She never asked to become a wolf, yet she did because she almost died. She was extremely grateful that she lived but was not sure if the price of living was really worth it. Her whole life was turned upside down and everything she strived hard to achieve was just falling into pieces around her.

However, despite all of this, Natasha was really trying to make this all work. She would apologise after not following orders, often bringing coffee as a peace offering between the two. Natasha made sure that she ate three square meals a day after finding out that she often forgot to eat whilst doing work, she would get too caught up in it or would pull triple shifts to make sure a mission went according to plan, which that also started the 'Make Sure Maria Sleeps Enough' plan that involved all the alphas, including Peggy. Sometimes even going as far as to include the other betas.

It was lovely as it was frustrating. She was used to spending all of time alone, not having anyone really care about her wellbeing. May and Coulson used to before they got busy with work and rarely came around until they were all transferred to different S.H.I.E.L.D stations.

It was taking a bit to get used to again.

She was on her way back down to the wolf pack, eager to nestle in at Natasha's side and watch whatever movie was on tonight. She was only a few hours late, and they usually did a marathon so hopefully she hasn't missed much. Fury had kept her behind to talk more about the project, asking her views on it now that she was fully apart of it. Maria told him to ask her in a few months time. He accepted her answer with a short nod and then started talking about the next phase of their plan, the rest of the pack, omegas, if you will. They had a list of candidates that they each thought would be good and were matching them up to who they thought they would be good with. Fury asked her to tell the alphas that over the next couple of days they would all be in his office discussing which agent goes where. Fury had high hopes that he could start on the omegas next week – Maria just wanted more time to spend with Natasha. It was complicated enough without bringing anyone else into this. She'll be discussing this with Fury at some point, but not right now, right now she saw her alpha lying across the couch and she wasn't there with her. Maria had to fix that.

With a grin, the beta moved swiftly before launching herself on top of Natasha, nestling herself in between the women's leg, looking up at her with a smile full of teeth. Ignore the chuffs of laughter surrounding her.

"Hey." Maria said cheerfully, prompting herself up on her elbows.

"Aren't you in a good mood today?" Natasha replied, amused at the women's way of showing affection.

"Mhm, don't ruin it." Maria replied, climbing off Natasha and shoving her legs off the couch so that she could sit down comfortably. "Fury wants to talk with all of you over the next couple of days on your thoughts of going ahead and getting the next wolf up and running." Maria added, leaning against the arm of the couch as her eyes wandered over the wolves in the room.

"So quickly? You guys are barely hitting the three week mark." Tobias said, frowning. "We had a good year before we got you guys. What's changed?"

"He wants to see how quickly he can get us up and running and see how the decreased time of being in the pack before a new wolf comes will affect us." Maria replied, shrugging a little. She was not overly fond of Fury's plan, wishing that he would wait until the next wolf to do that, but she could understand the urgency, they couldn't wait a year between each wolf.

"He might mess it up and lose several of his best agents." Jayden warned, leaning forward, his teeth slightly barred, his Beta James tensed up beside him.

The action caused a rippling effect across the room and Maria found herself in a half crouch in front of Natasha, snarling at the other wolves, her mind and body telling her to protect her alpha.

"Everyone calm down, _now_." Peggy's voice carried, strong and firm in her command. The effect was instantaneous as she felt herself relax but not before quickly snapping her teeth at the other Beta's. ' _Just a warning_ ', she told herself, ' _they do not need to come anywhere near Natasha_ '. Peggy glared at her from across the room and she back down, sitting down slowly in front of Natasha.

"Now that is sorted, thank you very much for that Tobias, read these files and chose the next person to join your pack. I'll speak to Nick about delaying it for a bit longer." Peggy said, dropping files onto the table in the middle.

Maria did not need to read them to know who would be a best fit for her pack. "Melinda May." Maria said, turning to look up at Natasha "You want Melinda May."

Natasha raised an eyebrow, and looked back at Peggy. It was a no brainer, if the deputy director was telling her to go for Melinda May, she was going for Melinda May. She had briefly heard about her from Barton and Coulson, but had never actually met the women. "Well Peg's, if Barton's not in that file, I'll have Melinda May." She drawled, trust Maria's judgement and did her best to not full on grin at the way Maria's face lit up when she went with her suggestion.

Peggy nodded and tossed Melinda May's file to her, "Okay, you've got May. The rest of you decided, and no, I don't want any of you complaining about Maria knowing the candidates. You had the chance to offer the girl into your own pack but you didn't, Natasha did. End of discussion." Peggy said with finality and moved to sit in her chair to watch over the pack.

Maria grinned at Natasha "May was my S.O, you're going to love her, I know it"

 **October 2nd 2014**

 **SKYE**

Skye woke up in a cold sweat, her hair sticking to her head, sweat dripping down her face, she clutched at the bed sheets desperately as she tried to remove the images from her mind. She tried to take deep breaths, only to find herself chocking on her own sobs. She pulled her knees up to her chest and rested her head on her knees, desperately trying to calm herself down. Panic continued to seize her body as the door quietly opened, a soft sigh was heard along with a quiet murmuring of "I'll go get May"

Skye flung her head back, opening her eyes wide as she once again tried to take deep breaths. This was ridiculous.

She could not even remember what she was dreaming about...not exactly anyways. All she knew was that in her dream, she was in trouble, a life or death situation and it seemed like it was leaning more towards the death outcome than the life outcome...and then there was the blurry faces. A blonde women, a couple of years older than her, desperately reaching out for her, screaming for her to wake up.

She wish she knew who it was and how they knew she was dreaming, or was it her unconsciousness? She wasn't too sure. The bed dipped down beside her and she felt a wet cloth being pressed to her forehead, along with a soft hand on her bare skin of her back. Her body hummed in joy, like this was exactly what she was looking for.

"Deep, even breaths, Skye" the women next to her mumbled, May, and began to move the cloth over her face. "With me" She instructed and began to take deep, even and calming breaths. Skye tried to mimic it exactly, taking a few extra seconds before she got the right rhythm.

"There we go, that's it...better?" May asked, after a while, her hand rubbing soothing circles on her bed. Skye turned to her tiredly and nodded, resting her head against May's shoulder, her eyes closing. May looked at the young adult in front of her, her clothes soaked from sweat, her face pale with a red tinge, looking vastly ill. She sighed and pulled her closer, adjusted their positions so that Skye's head was tucked in at the crook of her neck. She looked at Fitzsimmons.

"Thank you for alerting me, go back to sleep, no doubt Coulson will want to start doing missions tomorrow" May instructed the two young wolves, they nodded, quickly looking at Skye before darting to their beds for a good nights sleep.

May sighed once more, before settling herself in the bed and held Skye close to her. Just as FitzSimmons woke her up, she had received frantic texts from Bobbi, some of the texts were wondering who the new pack member was and others were to go wake her up as she was having a rather horrible nightmare. May doubted that Skye would remember her nightmare at all or even this night, she was completely out of it. Her young wolf whimpered in her sleep and May automatically reacted by running a hand through the girl's hair, reminding her of the endless night's spent with her mate, Natasha, holding one of their wolves whenever they had a nightmare. At the start, it had been Maria, still emotionally recovering from the attack that caused her to turn. May had only just joined the pack but did not hesitate to offer the young women comfort.

Bobbi had been the next one to suffer through nightmares and questioning her morality. She had recently discovered her hidden talent for interrogations and was soon renowned for it throughout S.H.I.E.L.D, some had claimed that she was better than Natasha. It came at a high cost until they were able to help her out. Bobbi and Maria had been the mains ones to suffer, Barton would sulk silently in his nest somewhere and Natasha would join him until the two of them felt better. Izzy had Victoria and Fitz didn't have much to fear in his dreams.

Maria started off by pushing both her and Natasha away, acting like the nightmares were nothing, until eventually one day she came into their running, tears streaming down her face, claiming she could not longer handle it. She would cry out and cling to Natasha desperately every night since that, only occasionally seeking comfort from Melinda. After a few weeks, the nightmares eventually disappeared and Maria was able to get a goods night rest.

With Bobbi, they had been wary, fully prepared to fight tooth and nail to get her to let them help her, but much to their surprise Bobbi willingly came to them for help after the first series of nightmares refused to stop. She never cried out in her sleep, only clutching to Melinda tightly. Bobbi preferred to be close to May when the nightmares happened, almost completely ignoring Natasha, which is now hilarious since the two of them are so close. Both Natasha and May joked that for their next nightmare filled pup would be clinging to Natasha as it seemed like they were taking turns but Natasha wasn't here and the only one to comfort the young wolf was May.

It was so Natasha's turn next time. Not that she did not mind helping their pack mates out, it was just that Melinda never really saw herself as the comforting type for adults. Although every time she looked at Fitz (and Simmons now, she guessed) and they way they acted she was only reminded painfully how young they were, and add Skye to the mix who was a few years younger than FitzSimmons, it was only more painfully obvious. It never seemed like they were adults, not compared to Natasha and herself. FitzSimmons and Skye were easily 20 years younger than the two of them, themselves only just hitting their 20's and every time she saw their teary eyes or quivering lips, her maternal instincts (which were ten times more instinctual thanks to the wolf serum) kicked in and she automatically went and comforted her little pups. That was also another drawback of the wolf serum in her mind. The constant, overly sweet nickname that she unconsciously refers to the younger wolves as, "pups", Natasha thought it was hilarious when Melinda first told her. Melinda found it hilarious when she made Nat sleep on the couch.

She held Skye tighter and repositioned herself into something more comfortable so that she could get some sleep tonight, tomorrow was going to be a long and complicated day, she could just feel it.

* * *

Skye woke up next to a warm body in a very comforting position, she curled closer to the body and sighed in content. She could practically feel the developing wolf inside her humming in content. Last night had been a nightmare, literally, not that she could remember it but she is very familiar with the feeling of tiredness that she currently has, which she never gets unless her sleep has been disrupted by a nightmare.

The only thing she could remember was a blonde women screaming at her to wake up. How confusing is that?

"Don't get too comfortable, you need to get up soon and get ready for your training session with Ward." Melinda said, looking amused at the young women who was clutching at her tightly with a small smile on her face.

"Do I have too?" Skye whined, very much sounding like a wolf, "I'm tiiiired" she dragged out, looking up at May with big puppy eyes, her brown eyes showing so much trust and hope that May would save her from whatever Ward had in mind for her this morning.

"Yes, I'm not having anyone in my pack be defenceless" May replied sternly

"Yeah okay I get that but why does it have to be Ward?" Skye whined again, tugging lightly on May's arm as she started to move off the bed. Skye did not want to let her go, she wanted the older women to stay in bed with her and hold her and watch disney movies with her until she felt better.

May sighed "because Coulson wants Ward to train you, he thinks it will help Ward become more used to working in a team and socialise him or something" she stood up, shaking off Skye's arm and turning round to look at the brunette.

"So basically I'm being used" Skye huffed, letting go of May's arm reluctantly, flinging herself back onto the bed. Her emotions have been all over the place yesterday and apparently today as well. Sometimes she outgoing and confident, her usual self, other times she is shy and wants nothing more than to be round her pack mates and then other times she just wants to lock herself away from everyone and cry.

This whole wolf thing was a pain in the ass, according to Skye. Stupid senses were increasing and she knew she was going to have intense mood swings which no doubt would FitzSimmons to avoid her and May seemed like the type of person to just roll their eyes at the behaviour. She wasn't even sure what Ward and Coulson were going to think, how would they handle what was essentially a hormonal teenager who would no doubt just yell at the simplest things or go off in a mood? Well, whatever lie they had to come up with, she was going to leave it to May to deal with.

"Basically, now come one, none of my pups are allowed to be slackers" May said, leaving the room and closing the door quietly.

"Pups?" Skye echoed, looking confused.

* * *

Skye stepped under the shower with a sigh, the warm water hitting her back soothingly as she rested her head against the cold ceramic wall. She used one hand to prop herself up against the wall as the other reached for a bottle of shampoo.

Training was so not what she imagined.

This was her fourth training session in two days and she was told to run laps around their very, very small training area, then push ups and some other warm ups before getting to the actual training. All of that took an hour and a half and the last half hour was spent learning how to make, what she thought was wrong, a fist and a stance that was far more suited for someone with Ward's built. Not hers. It seemed like Ward was stalling their training. She wondered if she should tell May this...she did say to come to her with any concerns but Skye did not want to be a bother. She'll leave it for now.

Turning the shower off and wrapping a robe around herself, she made her way to her room quickly, not wanting to encounter anyone whilst in minimal clothing. Dressing herself quickly, she stared at her wet hair in the mirror and rolled her eyes. She so could not be bothered. It wasn't even 9am and she has never been this active before in her life (okay, that was a slight lie, just not before 9am).

Coulson finally had a mission for them today and she was not allowed to wallow in self pity, like she wanted to do, now more than ever she was wondering why she just didn't choose jail...there was no imminent threat to her, after all she was a mere simple hacker to the others and there was no need to extensive exercise or to put her life in danger or the need to take the wolf serum. Which reminded her, she wanted to know how the wolf serum came about, it doesn't seem like something you just stumble upon whilst trying to find a cure for cancer or something. She wondered in Simmons knew, she'll have to ask, but for now she has to finish getting ready and present herself for debriefing of the mission.

* * *

That was a disaster. The mission was terrifying and her heart was still racing despite her calm exterior, she smiled at her team mates and joke along with them as they sat in a small S.H.I.E.L.D base waiting for the damage of the plane to be repaired, possibly having to stay in the base overnight, possibly stretching to two days according to Coulson. 'Fantastic' Skye had thought, ' A little rest period after that hell of a mission'

There weren't many agents at this shield base, maybe 20 other agents or so, it was a passing through base, Ward had said, somewhere where agents can relax for a day or two before continuing on with a mission or back to travelling. It certainly made for an interesting place, she had expected offices and training places left right and centre along with tons of weapons and tech, but in reality, it was very cosy looking, there was a few offices, weapons and such, but mainly it was rooms with soft looking beds that Skye could sink right into, fridges filled with delicious food and fully stocked bars littered all over the base. It was basically the opposite of what she thought Shield to be.

"Some agents view and/or do some pretty horrific things on their missions so bases like these provide them with an escape-" Simmons stated,with pity in her eyes

"Yeah and drink away their sorrows and demons with the amount of alcohol in here" Fitz interrupted, gesturing to one of the mini bars.

"Fitz! You're implying that every shield agent is basically an alcoholic"

"Well, at least once in every agents career they will do it, like out of anger or something and just try to kill their liver" Fitz argued back

"Or kill themselves" Skye mumbled, flicking through images of cats on her phone, sometimes when Fitz and Simmons argue she just automatically tunes them out or appears uninterested so that when they turn to her for her to pick a side she can just raise an eyebrow at them and they will leave her alone.

"Skye!" The two of them whispered in a horrific tone, looking outraged that she would dare even say that.

"What?" She asked, looking confused at the two of them "It's true."

"Just because it's true Skye, does not mean we speak of it. Unwritten rule number one, never speak of the amount of alcohol that agents consume" May said, sitting down with Coulson trailing behind them, casting May a weird, yet happy look as he carried bottles of beer. May took a sip of her own as she looked at her small team.

"Thought you guys deserved these after that mission" Coulson said, looking apologetic at them all as they took the drink off of him.

"We deserve something a little bit stronger" Skye mumbled, opening her bottle up and taking a swing.

"Tequila?" Fitz offered

"No tequila" May and Coulson said simultaneously, causing them to chuckle whilst Fitz pouted, muttering about how he could drink ten bottles the now and still be fine.

"So Skye, how are you finding Shield? I know your introductions to it hasn't been...the best, but it could have been worse" Coulson asks, Skye looks at him incredulously.

"How could it be worse?" She asks, stunned, does he not know that she was offered either jail (read as hell) or join them and be turned into a wolf...okay so he doesn't know about the wolf thing but still she was basically forced to join them.

"You could have been brought in after shield told an agent to kill you" May said, sipping her drink, looking uninterested as she fiddled with her phone.

"Who was introduced to shield like that and still joined?" Skye asked

"Agent Natasha Romanoff, or more commonly known now as the Black Widow" Simmons supplied casually.

Skye almost spat out her drink "Wait what? The Black Widow? You mean the one that helped save New York from invading aliens? She had a bounty on her head?"

Fitz and Simmons shared a look of mischief whilst May raised her eyebrows in slight surprise. Ward groaned

"Please don't tell me your a fangirl, please tell me we have not picked up a fangirl." Ward bemoaned

Skye blushed a little "I'm not a fangirl, it's just that the Black Widow is totally hot and awesome, like did you see they way she kicked those aliens asses and she doesn't have a fancy super suit like Iron Man or that indestructible shield that Captain America has. Oh and Hawkeye is totally cool like his ability to shoot arrows correctly at a target without even looking, like that the heck is that all about, ohmygod I am fangirling." Skye rambled, covering her face in embarrassment at the end.

Fitz and Simmons burst out laughing and Ward shook his face, clearly annoyed that his new trainee was a total fangirl.

"It's not that funny" Skye protest, pouting

"Trust me, one day, you'll realise why we are laughing so much" Fitz said, his face slightly red from laughing, a small grin settling on his face as Simmons gives her a small wink.

"I think Skye has a crush on Agent Romanoff, wouldn't they make a great couple, Agent May?" Simmons asked, grinning, clearly knowing something that only Fitz and May were privy to.

May raised an eyebrow at Simmons, a shimmer of anger and possessiveness in her eyes as she forced out "of course"

Simmons tried not to flinch at the look in May's eyes, she was going to regret the jibe later.

Skye groaned and tried to hide herself from the teasing by curling up into a ball, which resulted in her stomach protesting at the weird position she was putting herself in. Her stomach had been acting up weirdly all day, she had made May aware of it at the start of the day and she nodded, simply rubbing Skye's shoulders and told her it was part of the serum and that if it got any worse, she was to let her know. Well, it just got worse in front of everyone so she assumes May knows know.

She lurched back into a normal position, whatever she just done seems to have set whatever was wrong with her off. It felt like something was wanting to burst free from within herself. A strange voice echoed around her, telling her to let the feeling take over, but three panic filled voices were telling her to hold on, keep in control and whatever she does, do not give into the feeling. Bile rose in her throat as she forced the feeling back and pain filled her body.

"I think I'm going to be sick" Skye struggled to her feet and lurched towards where she thought the bathroom was. Simmons jumped up and began pulling Skye towards the closest bathroom, which thankfully was one of their bunks, hopefully Skye could last till they got her to her own bunk. She ignored the looks of concern from passing agents and ushered Skye into her temporary bunk and into the bathroom. 'Just in time' she thought, as she watched Skye throw up into the toilet. She rubbed her fellow agents back soothingly, pulling her hair gently behind her back, pulling it out of her face.

"Fitz get me a cold cloth" She instructed, not even turning to see if he was even there. She knew he was. She felt the air move slightly at Fitz departure and the presence of others take his spot.

Looking up she saw the rest of the time "She will be fine" she assured them "probably just ate something that didn't agree with her stomach"

Seeing their doubtful looks, she reassured them "honestly, she will be fine. Who is the doctor here?" she asked teasingly, and made shooing motions with her hands. As much as she would have liked to just leave May to it and stay here with Skye (and no doubt so would Skye), she couldn't in case it raised suspicion with Coulson, or more so rather.

They, herself, Fitz and May, all agreed not to tell Skye the real reason that Ward was her S.O instead of May, who was clearly more qualified to teach a slightly rebellious young adult. Coulson was using Ward to spy on Skye and find out more information on the condition that Skye agreed to upon joining shield. Coulson had approached both herself and Fitz about keeping a look out for Skye, he was subtle about it and was gauging their reactions in his decision to ask whether or not they would blatantly spy on Skye and report back to him. He only asked Simmons to look out for Skye and go to him with any concerns that she may have whereas Fitz agreed to spy on her. Both of them automatically reported back to May who thanked them but said she already knew. May always knew everything before they did, it always stumped them.

"Alright Simmons, we'll leave you to it, if she gets worse, let me know, okay?" Coulson says, concerned.

"Of course, sir" She replied, grabbing the cloth of off Fitz as he returned. She pressed it around Skye's neck, whispering soothing words in her ears as she continued to be sick.

"This is horrible" she groaned, resting her head on her arms.

"I know" Simmons mumbled sympathetically, glancing in annoyance at the others due to the fact that they haven't left yet.

"Right, well, we'll be off" Coulson finished awkwardly, leaving with Ward.

May gave Simmons a stern, yet concerned, look. Simmons nodded, clearly getting the message. Happy that Simmons understood, May left happy to put her faith in Simmons that she can take care of Skye and that if it got to much, Simmons would get help.

Simmons sighed and placed a soft kiss at the back of Skye's head. "It's okay, you're going to be fine. We've all been through this at one point. The damn serum makes us ill, it's either going to get worse tonight or another tonight, but after that one really bad night it will be easy sailing form there, I promise. Well minus the nightmares but we think that's a trick our link it doing to help build trust between the pack's alpha and mate and those pack members who have had a hard life and find it hard to trust people or work with them, or at least that is what it is starting to seem like. From your pack, from what Fitz and Clint have told me, Maria, that the beta of your pack, and Bobbi totally clung to May and Natasha during their first year of joining the pack. Fitz joined your pack two years after they did which and I was assigned to another pack, but more about that later. Now that you've joined you're technically the youngest of the pack, as a whole. Just thought you should know, everyone will totally be protective of you, no doubt. Oh god Skye, you're getting worse. I can literally feel your temperature in the air" Simmons rambled, looking concerned. She placed her hand on Skye's forehead and flinched at the heat. She moved the cloth to Skye's face in an attempt to cool her down.

Skye whimpered and leaned back against Simmons. She no longer felt like she was going to vomit, but instead her muscles felt sore and it was freezing.

"Simmons" She whimpered, cuddling closer to the older girl "it's freezing"

"Skye, you have a temperature, we're just going to put you in your bed and let you rest for the night and hopefully you'll sleep through the worst of it" Simmons said in a soothing voice, pulling Skye to her feet and leading her back into her room.

"Pj's" Skye mumbled, reaching for her bag.

"Of course Skye" Simmons mumbled, and proceeded to help Skye get ready for bed.

* * *

Simmons lay in bed with Skye, who was now sound asleep, running a hand through the girls hair as she clung tightly to her. She was absently watching TV, too cautious to fall asleep. She didn't want to sleep and then have Skye be in more pain than she is, or worse, and she's sleeping through it, not that she is a light sleeper but she hasn't sleep in over 40 hours, due to one thing or another and if she were to fall asleep now, she wouldn't even wake up for an earthquake. Sighing, she moved closer to Skye. It was harder for her to provide the comfort that Skye was looking for, Simmons had sent a message to May saying that Skye's illness was under control and it did not look like she would change anytime soon, so it was safe for her to come watch Skye. May said that she would be there shortly, two hours ago.

"Simmons" Simmons jumped up, careful not to disturb Skye and turned to face May, who had finally arrived without her knowing, she must have been really deep within her thoughts.

"Oh Agent May! You startled me!" Simmons smiled, looking happily at May

"How is she doing?" May asked, straight to the point.

"Better than when I texted you earlier. I think she is going through the worst of it in her sleep, she was pretty out of it before she fell asleep." Simmons replied.

May nodded and slowly moved over to where the two wolves were lying. She sat on the edge of the bed as she watched as Simmons awkwardly climbed away from Skye, allowing for May to rest with the girl.

"How are you doing Simmons? Victoria was asking" May asked in a slightly more caring voice, falling into her new natural role, she had orders after all to look after the young wolf.

Simmons smiled tiredly at May, thankful that the women was here to check up on her and Fitz, she was not sure how the two of them would handle being out in the field themselves without another wolf with them, especially when they had to keep up the personas that they did. It was tiring and they've never really had to use the spy skills that they were taught, only the combat for some missions that they did, and well, being a giant wolf was about as inconspicuous as it got. No one would be expecting it.

"I'm alright May" She replied, forcing a smile on her face. She was knackered.

May leaned forward and pressed a kiss against Simmons forehead, pulling Simmons into a small hug. Whilst they may not be of the same pack, the two packs were very close and she might as well try and provide some comfort to the women when she could.

"Wish I was Tori?" May joked, knowing exactly who Simmons would want right now. Simmons blushed and attempted to hide her face.

"It's fine, kid." she whispered, resting her head against Simmons "I wish I could let you know that Tori's on her way here, but we don't know. Maria is coming up with some formal excuse for her to come check on you along with Natasha.

"Really?" Simmons asked,not lifting her head from May's neck.

"Mhm."

"How long till they get here?" She asked hopefully, pulling away from May.

"If everything goes to plan, in about three hours." May replied.

Simmons grinned "That's fantastic to hear" she said happily.

"Go to your bunk and get a nap, I'll wake you up when they arrive, okay?" May ordered.

"Yes Agent May." Simmons said, flinging Skye one last look as she left the room.

May sighed and moved closer to Skye, pulling the young women closer to her side, burying her nose in her hair. Letting the wolf instinct run wild. It was happy that they had a new pack member, but she needed to be formally claimed as theirs. She didn't smell like their pack, yet she did. The wolf in her ached to claim her, it would be so simple. Just shift and a little bite on the neck with some scenting and she would be all theirs, but she knew better than to do that. That was Natasha's job. Hopefully her mate can fix this problem when she arrives in a few hours.

May pulled out her phone, deciding to look at potential missions for the team. She was need to choose some long missions, to stop Coulson from looking further into the issue of Skye. It was becoming an annoyance that he just wouldn't drop the topic of the past few days.

 _Nat: Hey, how is the new pup? 3_

May smiled down happily at her phone, the only good thing on it at the moment. She couldn't wait to see Natasha in a few hours.

 _May: Fine now, she's cuddled up me at the moment, so cute and innocent. She doesn't smell like us. You need to fix it._

 _Nat: Don't worry, that is the first thing on my mind. Gotta make her mine. ;) Have the nightmares been alright for the past few days? Bobbi was pretty freaked out over the first one. They will totally be mates, no one else in the pack saw the nightmares except her. They will make such a cute couple! 3_

 _May: Don't mess with that Nat,or rush it. You could make things worse let them realise in their own time. Nightmares are down to a minimum, but most likely because she has been sleeping with me the past few nights._

 _Nat: Alright see you babe, I wont mess with my packs love life. For once. Also, Hand and Fury are coming with me. Skye wont be on your team until the transformation has happened._

 _May: Really? What's the excuse that they are going to come up with? Coulson's not going to like it._

 _Nat: I think Fury is going to pander to the whole 'my one good eye' and needing to make sure everyone on his team is verified and okay to be on the field because he doesn't want to lose him again._

 _May: I don't Fury would be pandering Nat, more like genuinely wanting to make sure Coulson doesn't get hurt again, he's probably being 100% serious about making sure Skye wont cause any stupid mistakes._

 _Nat: Probably, also this would have been much easier in a phone call, but it means that Maria and I can watch out for her and make sure everything goes okay. Well whatever, I'll see you in 2 hours, 27 minutes and 14 seconds. Love you! :)_

 _May: True, but might have woken the sleeping pup. You're a dork, I hope you know that. Love you._

 _Nat: ;)))))))))))))) 3_

 _May: Nat. Really?_

 _Nat: :*_

 _May: …. 3_

 _May: … :*_

 _Nat: :D_

May sighed and put down her phone with a stupid smile on her face, there was a reason she loved this women, well beside the soul mate thing. It would be nice to see her again, she missed her like crazy and couldn't wait to hold her. It was also good that Skye was going to get the same experience that all the other pack members got when they went through the transformation.

"May"

She was drawn from her thoughts and looked down at the young wolf, Skye was looking at her with tired eyes. "You look so nice when you're happy" she mumbled, pushing her body half onto May's, dragging her legs across May's waist.

May chuckled lightly, wrapping an arm firmly around Skye, holding her in place and leaned back against the pillows, closing her eyes for a small rest. In 2 hours, 25 minutes and 16 seconds, her mate would arrive.

She couldn't wait.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Hey guys! I'd just like to say thank you all so much for all the comments left on the last chapter, like most of authors, it brings a lot of motivation plus it was good to hear that basically all of you are enjoying this revamped version, got to say, I'm enjoying this a lot more than the original version.**

 **This is also the chapter where I can say has complete changed from the original chapter and hopefully you all will like what I have done compared to what I did previously.**

 **Any comments on this will be greatly appreciated! Thank you!**

 **September 17** **th** **2014**

 **NATASHA**

Natasha had finally arrived at the base with both Hand and Fury in tow. The three of them moved silent through the relatively empty base. It was late and they had arrived later than they thought they would. Natasha moved swiftly, following her nose to find her mate and the new pup. During her walk, Hand had split from her, no doubt she was off to find Simmons.

Fury followed her until she pointed him in the direction of Coulson. He nodded his thanks and left silently in the opposite direction. It left only her to find her pack members. It didn't take long before she ended up in the room where Melinda and Skye were curled up against each other, taking up most of the bed but leaving just enough room for her to climb in besides them. Natasha shifted herself closer to Melinda, wrapping an arm securely around her waist and pulled her firmly against her body, whilst using her other hand to prop up her head, waiting silent for Melinda to acknowledge that she had arrived. Natasha knew that the women had been awake as soon as she stepped foot on the base, her scent easily echoing around, but Melinda was teasing her by still pretending to be asleep.

Natasha hummed softly, trailing her fingers along Melinda's side, softly going under shirt and sliding further and further up. She was determined to win this small battle of wills.

"Not everything has to be a competition, you know?" Melinda mumbled, staying perfectly still.

Natasha grinned, "but where would be the fun in that?" She questioned her mate.

Melinda rolled her eyes and rolled over to face Natasha with a small smile, making sure not to disturb the sleeping wolf next to them. She leaned forward and pressed a small kiss against Natasha's lips, "you're terrible," Melinda told her.

"You love it," Natasha said, still grinning and moved her lips closer to Melinda's ears, "and if I was really, really terrible. I'd being doing a lot more than spooning you right now," she whispered, running one hand down her side, sliding teasingly into the waist of Melinda's trousers.

Melinda bite back a groan, this is exactly what she wanted to do and Natasha know it, the only thing that was preventing the two of them going ahead with the need was Skye lying silently next to them. Natasha half wished it was Maria because the amount of times Natasha has fucked Mel whilst the women was sleeping in the same bed was far too many to count, and it was only because it pissed Maria off, or sometimes, when Sharon was away, Maria decided to have some fun as well and the two of them would torture Melinda. Well, at least that is what Maria would like people to think, most of the time it involved Nat and Mel having fun teasing Maria and having the beta submit to them.

Somehow, Natasha did not think Skye would enjoy that, at least not yet anyways.

"You're such a tease, and yes you are really really terrible." Mel complained, forcing Nat to lie on her bed so that she could rest her head on the women's chest. "Such a terrible tease, but so comfy to lie on."

"All in the chest, babe." Natasha replied, moving herself to accommodate Melinda's new position, making sure her arm was wrapped around her Melinda and holding her tight against her body.

Melinda just rolled her eyes (for the fifth time tonight, Natasha had that effect) and curled close and closed her eyes. Simply content to sleep on her soulmate for the night. "Time to sleep, Nat. We can have fun tomorrow." Mel said, a small smirk on her face.

Nat groaned into May's hair, "now who's the tease?" she mumbled, softly kissing her wife's head before making herself comfortable and closing her eyes and easily fell asleep for the first time since May joined Coulson's team; light how she missed sleeping next to her wife every night. It was easy to take for granted the warmth that Mel brought, the way she make Natasha feel like she was constantly walking on cloud 9. The teasing and small touches in public, the flirtatious smirks and the intentionally touching of other people in an attempt to make each other jealous.

It had taken her longer than she thought to get used to sleeping on her own, or sleeping with another pack member. If they were in the same situation five years ago, Natasha would have been used to going long periods of time without Melinda in bed with her, but after Melinda had the bad experience in Bahrain and moved to administration, Natasha got used to coming home to her every night. They worked out of the same building, the Triskelion, worked the same hours (unless Natasha had a mission, or was off doing something with the Avengers) and would have the same break periods. Bliss. Total, bliss.

Then it was all ripped away from her.

Unfortunately, she did not deal with it as well as she thought originally and poor Maria face the brunt of most of the frustrations. Completely willingly of course, Natasha would never force Maria into doing the things they did or force her into the brutal sparring match that often turned into a domination fight that they had. It generally led to Maria sitting on the medic table in their level, holding a clothe to her face as they waited for the bleeding and swelling to heal itself and Peggy standing over them, glaring at them disapprovingly and the two of them sat there with sheepish grins on their faces.

Maria was not taking to Sharon being undercover for an extended period of time well either. Fury decided to make the women watch out for captain america, make sure he was adjusting to the world and socialising okay. So it was a win win situation for the two girls, they got their frustration and angry out at the situation that they were in. Although Maria was always on her back, Natasha wasn't complaining. The women seemed fine for the moment but she was keeping an eye on her just to be on the safe side.

Natasha sighed and pushed all the negative thoughts away. Now was not the time to be dwelling on the fact that Melinda was not going to be around as often as she would like, it was time to enjoy the moment of being with her wife. She curled closer, simply burying her face in the back of Mel's neck, memorising the scent once again, letting it calm her into a peaceful sleep...

* * *

 **September 17** **th** **2014**

 **SKYE**

Skye woke to the sound of two people giggling and shuffling on the bed cause her to roll the wrong way right into someones bare back. Or at least that's what it felt like. She just groaned, she did not want to be awake, she wanted to be asleep. As per usual.

"Oh shit, Nat!" a snort of laughter "Skye's awake I thi-NAT!" That was definitely May, but something was different. Her voice seemed lighter, more happy and full of life. The intense laughing/giggling that was going on was so un-May like, but yet, seemed something that May would totally do. It was interesting to hear, she hasn't gotten to know the women very well just yet, but she always got the impression that she was more of a 'hide your emotions when you can' kind of person. Yet here she was, lying in bed with Skye and some other person, laughing and apparently half naked.

That took a while to register.

Skye sat up abruptly and her eyes widened in surprised "holyshityourtheblackwidow" she rushed out "annnnd your both half naked, damn," she finished and moved to the edge of the bed, pressing her back against the wall. She was trying not to eye them up, because hot damn they both looked great. Their abs were something to drool over and Skye would not mind licking off some sauce of their abs. Or whipped cream and some strawberries. Oh god, she could just tell her face was bright red from her thoughts. She coughed awkwardly and risked a look at them.

The two fuckers were just grinning at her, but had thankfully put a top on.

"You guys were going to have sex whilst I was sleeping next to you." She accused them, trying to scowl and appear annoyed, but honestly she couldn't because if she woke up to them having sex, Skye wasn't too sure if she was walk away or join in.

"No we were, Natasha just got a little frisky that's all." May said, shooting a glare at the redheaded women next to her, who just shrugged unapologetically.

"The plan was to come here, find you, fuck you, then find the pup, make her mine and then leave after I grab what Fury wanted me to grab." Natasha explained "You sleeping in bed with the new pup was not part of the plan, and geeze, you just know alpha's. Once we get sex in our minds, it wont leave until we get what we want." Natasha joked, winking at Skye.

May rolled her eyes and shoved Natasha out of the bed, "stupid alpha. I sent you a text saying I was with Skye. You're just a hormonal teenager. Also, don't forget you need to actually speak to Skye and explain everything to her. She doesn't like being kept in the dark."

Natasha climbed back into the bed with a pout, but nodded, a more serious look coming over her. "Of course I'll talk to Skye, would you like to talk the now or after or during breakfast? It will just be the three of us. Fitz will be with Simmons and Hand no doubt." Natasha asked Skye, looking at the girl directly.

Skye regarded them both carefully "What would need to be talked about?"

"Well, I can imagine you have some question about everything, probably some resentment too that we would need to work past, plus I also have orders to take you to the Triskelion." Natasha replied

Skye frowned "Take me to the big base in Washington? Why would I need to go there? I thought May was helping with the transitioning, why do I need to go to the pack base?" She questioned rapidly, Fitz and Simmons had both talked about that base a few times over the precious few days that she has been with Coulson's team. They mentioned training there, the type of training that they wouldn't receive anywhere else. It didn't take a genius to figure out that is where they all went to change.

Natasha looked genuinely surprised that Skye knew that, and then grinned "you're a lot more perceptive than you let on, Skye. We can definitely work with that, and it will make things a lot easier for you in the long run as well."

Skye blinked at the praise. No one has ever praised her for being perceptive. It always resulted in yelling, one too many foster parents annoyed that she was aware of their dirty deeds or the flaws in their perfect family. She ducked her head briefly, but looked back up. She needed answers.

"But why am I to go to Washington?" She pressed, not losing focus on what was at hand. She also guessed that they were having the conversation before breakfast. Ah well.

"Fury's orders, but also a request by me. I always help the new pups go through the change, you would be the only one to change away from the majority of the pack, and I won't have that. I get that you might only just becoming comfortable with May, being on the team and being with S.H.I.E.L.D in general, but honestly, the change can effect you in many ways and most people become seriously ill and clingy during the two week change.

Doing missions whilst your sick out your mind is terrible and dangerous for yourself, it also puts the team at risk. Not that I really care, Fitz, Simmons and Mel can look after themselves in any situation. Mel would look out for Coulson and eh, I don't really care about Ward. Plus, this way I can at least give you the basics in S.H.I.E.L.D training, and asses you once you're back on your feet. This will also satisfy Fury who wants to make sure that you won't cause harm to the team or won't be a deadweight. Which is ridiculous of him to think so considering how far you got into S.H.I.E.L.D when you hacked us. That's why you're coming to Washington with me, plus you'll meet other pack members and there is a great pizza place there that you will love." Natasha explained, not normally one for speeches, but she sensed that Skye needed to hear this explained out rather than the short, vague answers she was used to giving and having people follow.

Skye took in Natasha's answer and mulled it over. It made sense. To assess her threat level, she was able to read(or hear rather) between the lines of what Natasha was saying. Fury did not trust her to be near Coulson it seemed. Natasha didn't care about this, knowing that even if she was a threat, everyone she cared about on the team would be safe. What Natasha was saying, was that Skye could be a potential threat to herself, by being sick and changing away form the pack. She was extremely against that. One thing that Skye could not get over was how Natasha seemed to genuinely care about Skye. Every word she spoke held care and love in it, as well as concern when she described how sick people can get. It made her heart swell but it also made her cautious. Too many false promises of love and care of the years has caused that, she wasn't sure if Natasha was being genuine, as much as she wanted to believe it, as much as she hoped. She stared at Natasha skeptically, hoping that she wasn't coming across as rude, but honestly, could anyone blame her? For what she's been through in life, it almost seemed too good to be true, to have people that will love her and care for her unconditionally, as May had described earlier and Natasha hinted to in her speech.

"Makes sense" Skye said slowly, not sure if she actually wanted to say aloud what she was thinking, "when do we leave?"

Natasha and Melinda started at her, searching her face for anything that might give away what she truly thought about the situation without delving into her head. They did not want to break her privacy and trust so early in the relationship.

"We would leave this afternoon. May and FitzSimmons would stay with the team and you come to meet the rest of the pack, plus Peggy. No doubt the other alpha's will be there as well, nosy bastards they are." Natasha replied easily, not wanting to make this seem like a bigger thing than what it is.

Skye nodded her acceptance, ignoring the creeping panic that was rising in her throat. "So breakfast?" she questioned, punctuating it with a growl of hunger.

May and Natasha laughed, startled by the sound but nodded, leading Skye to where they would eat.

* * *

Breakfast had been quite fun, Natasha told some personal things to Skye and told her about what May was like when she was just starting out. How she and Hawkeye would pull pranks together, annoying both Coulson and the deputy director, Maria Hill, who was also the pack beta. Apparently Fury got so sick of their shit, he left it up to Maria to deal with them.

So she tried to deal with the but pranking them back and caused a prank war and she blamed all the pranks on a fellow named Jasper Sitwell, which saved her retaliation until she found a way to stop them (without resorting to her command as beta of the pack, but apparently it wouldn't work to well on May.) It ended with Maria asking Natasha to make them stop and pulled the "I'm not getting sleep over this, Natasha!" card.

"Hill is terrible at sleeping. It's like she doesn't know how to unless she is seconds from passing out with exhaustion. So we ended up starting a programmed to make sure she ate and slept. At first it was a joke, until we were actually monitoring what she ate and how much she slept and realised she wasn't getting much of either. So we practically forced it upon her until she started living healthier. She still sucks at it, but it's better than what it was, thats' for sure." Natasha said with a chuckle when she was telling stories about certain pack members.

It was overwhelming, but heart warming to hear stories of how they looked after each other, going to the end of the world to ensure their happiness. Most people would only ever do that for their soulmate, go to those lengths of love and commitment, to sacrifice and observe someone. Being completely selfless. It was hard to comprehend, when you grow up in the foster system, foster parents begrudged picking you up from school when you will ill, never mind flying half way across the world because you will ill.

Since coming to S.H.I.E.L.D, this was the first time Skye was fully, and genuinely, happy to be a part of the wolf pack. Sure, she had her moments of affection with May, but that was only because of them chemical reaction going on inside her body and May's wolf reacting to that. She barely knew the women, but after this morning, she felt like she knew May better than most people, and that was probably true. Neither women hid anything from her as they talk, they explained everything to her about the wolf serum, how it was created and used;

" _Well, really it was discovered by an accident. We aren't the first to be turned but we are some of the first to survive successfully. So we are still technically a trial run, which means check ups and I'm going to assume you are going to be as difficult as the rest of the pack. Now, the wolf serum, funnily enough, was created in an attempted to replicate the super solider serum and obviously they got it very wrong. We get a lot from it, of course, like we have enhanced sense and some extra strength. We could probably lift a car if we really wanted to, but the enhanced strength and sense only ever happened when you have the wolf form. Which is why the serum ended up like it has_."

That had been interesting to know. They also explained why Coulson did not know either, apparently he was preoccupied with another project, that only Maria and Fury knew and that whenever they had previously tried to get Maria told explain what the project was, she would just go pale and shake her head, unwilling to talk. Apparently they knew what it was know, but they said that if they could erase it from their minds they would, and they wouldn't want to pass that knowledge onto Skye, but if she really wanted to know what it is, all she had to do was ask at a later date. It was nice that they weren't hiding anything from her, if she asked a question that they weren't completely comfortable with giving her the answer right there and then, they simply ask Skye if they could tell her at a later date, which Skye thought was fair.

Currently, she was landing at the Triskelion base under the cloaking device so people wouldn't see the plane land in the landing pad. Her goodbye with the team had been brief, they weren't exactly close, but Coulson surprised her by giving her a hug and his number, looking at her straight in the eyes when he told her to call him if she ever ran into an emergency, or just wanted to talk. He looked so serious and concerned that Skye wasn't so sure what to do with all the emotions she was feeling.

After breakfast, the nausea had reappeared along with some overwhelming emotions. Everything she did nearly caused her to break down. It was not fun. So she just smile watery and waved a goodbye to the last four members of the team. Locking eyes with May as she left, she felt the tug on her heart she used to feel when she was forced to leave foster families and she had to look away, or else she might have ran straight into the women's arm and refused to let go.

Thankfully Natasha put a strong hand on her shoulder and guided her away with a serious nod to her team as they left. May and Natasha had an intimate goodbye earlier on. The two of them had stood pressed against each other, their legs and arms wrapped complicated and tightly around each other, foreheads pressed together as they just seemed to stare into each other's eyes. They had stood in this embrace for what seemed like 10 minutes, Skye had left the room to give them some more privacy, when she came back in, May had Natasha pressed against the wall, kissing her as though her life depending on it. The two of the were gripping each other desperately, pulling apart, still holding the front of their tops as they panted, staring again.

"Come back to me Nattie," May whispered, pressing a soft peck against Natasha's lips.

"Will do, Millie." Natasha replied, equally as quiet. The two of them stayed in the same embrace for a second longer before turning to Skye with soft smiles on their faces, gently squeezing each others hands, they walked towards the team to say their goodbyes.

Skye decided to never speak of that moment between the two of them, ever. It wasn't her place, although she would assume it was usual practice for the two soulmates, maybe just not in front of someone they just met.

It all seemed like a distant memory as she walked in a daze through the Triskelion, impressed with the size of it and the sheer structural look of it. It was amazing that this super secret agency hid their main headquarters in the middle of Washington and no one knew any better.

Natasha kept a hand on her shoulder as she guided her through the base, her face hard and cold as she glared at anyone that dared looked at her or Skye. Sneering as someone made an unsavoury comment about the two of them.

It wasn't long until they reached a lift at an empty part of the building after going through a dozen of security doors. Only one other person occupied the area; she was a tall brunette with striking blue eyes and an equally striking jaw line. She stood tall and proud, radiating authority and easily commanded that everyone in her vicinity to turn to look at her and listen and follow what she says.

It was impressive as it was intimidating.

"Maria." Natasha acknowledge, tilting her head as she headed into the lift, Maria following behind.

"Romanoff. You certainly took your time." Maria replied cooly.

Skye looked between the two in confusion. Weren't they close friends? Alpha and beta? They were acting like casual work acquaintances at best. She looked at Natasha, who had a firm look in her eyes and Skye got the impression that she shouldn't mention anything until Natasha said she could.

It was a long five minutes in that lift.

Eventually they walked out, Maria letting out a sigh of relief, cracking her neck and rolling her shoulders as she moved with the two of them through a winding hallway.

"Sorry about that Skye, the walls have ears and we aren't allowed to mention anything until in the safety of our level. Pleasure to meet you, by the way. I'm Maria. I'm sure Nat has told you that already." Maria said, turning in her stride as she smiled at Skye. All the previous hard look around the women had disappeared and was replaced with warmth. She still seemed to demand respect and attention, but Skye just assumed that came with the fact Maria was the beta.

"It's okay, nice to meet you too, Maria." Skye said formally, unsure of how to act around everyone.

"Relax Skye, it's only Maria and I here, everyone, including Peggy, are actually out on a mission. They should all start coming back in about two days or so. It gives you time to be comfortable around me and Maria." Natasha said, leading them into a room.

It was a big room, like really big, it was basically an apartment. It had a massive bed off at the other side of the room, looking like two or three king beds pushed together and it held at least four sets of covers and two dozen pillows. It look extremely comfy. The rest of the bedroom was toppped off with low, dim lights, fuzzy black carpet and a TV, couch and gaming systems and if she peak round the corner, she could see the entrance to an en suite.

Bliss.

"Wow, is this your room Natasha?" Skye questioned, walking further in and circling around the room in awe.

Maria and Natasha stood watching her with soft smiles, glad that the new wolf was seemingly happy with the place. She would be spending a lot of time here until they got her own room set up for her.

"Yeah, pretty awesome, isn't it?" Natasha replied

"What's with the big bed?" Skye asked, turning to look at them as she stood next to the bed.

"For when the pack want to sleep together. It's happen more than you think it would. Maria and Sharon practically live in here as well. Maria is clingy to me." Natasha teased, gripping the women's arm and dragged her over to the bed and shoved her down on it. She turned to look at Skye, a glint in her eyes as she forced herself to take deep breaths and take everything slow.

"Make sense." Skye said carefully, watching Natasha who was looking at her like she was a piece of meat.

"Skye, remember when Mel and I told you about scenting and claiming pack members?" Natasha asked, forcing the question through her teeth as she gripped Skye's hips.

"Yes. You want to do that the now?" Skye replied, gently placing her hands on Natasha's shoulders. The alpha shudder and brought Skye against her body and nuzzled her neck.

"Please. The wolf is basically begging me to claim you, no doubt Maria is feeling this as well, but I don't want to do anything you're uncomfortable with." Natasha whispered, eyes closed as she focused on not pouncing on the girl.

"Go ahead, I don't mind. If this is part of becoming the pack, I'm up for it." Skye replied, running her hands through Natasha's hair, causing the alpha to purr in delight and she manoeuvred them onto the bed. She easily straddled Skye's hip, lowering her body down, lining her teeth up with the perfect spot on Skye's neck. Natasha partially shifted, her mouth smelling and looking more like a wolf as she growled and bit deeply into Skye's neck.

Skye yelped out in pain and found herself trying to break free of Natasha's grip, but the women held strong, soft growls in the back of her throat as she held Skye down, her body emitting strong pheromones, covering Skye in them. The pain maybe lasted twenty seconds before it took a dramatic turn in to warmth and safety. It flooded her system as she felt her mind and seemingly soul align with Natasha. The thoughts and feelings of the alpha leaking into her as she wrapped her arms around the alpha, clinging for dear life at the sensation she was causing.

It wasn't sexual in the slightest, all she knew was that she wanted to be close to Natasha, closer than she was at the current moment. The only way to get closer was to remove their clothes. She gripped the bottom of Natasha's shirt to pull it up, to get closer, only to be stopped by Maria. The beta stared down at her happily.

"As much as I get what you are feeling, I really do. I can't let you do something that you will regret or find embarrassing later on." Maria said, gently putting Natasha's shirt in place.

"I promise I won't!" Skye pleaded, she understood and appreciated what Maria was doing for her, watching out for her mental state and the level of comfortableness she was willing to display, but this is something she wanted. Her head was coming off of cloud nine and she needed Natasha after feeling vulnerable. Maria gave her a searching looking before nodding, helping her assist with removing both their clothes.

Skye let out a sigh as Natasha continued to nuzzle her from behind, but their naked bodies were pressed tightly together and she held her securely. Maria lay on the bed next to them, pressing herself against Skye's front, fully clothed as she was keeping an eye on the situation, but was seemingly happy to cuddle.

"Well, I've got to say, this is probably the best outcome we could have hoped for." Natasha mumbled, place soft kisses on Skye's neck, determined to leave multiple marks there.

"Less talking, more cuddling." Skye mumbled, feeling sleepy. Apparently the marking took a lot out of you.

Maria nuzzled Skye (there was a lot of nuzzling, Skye noted, but she didn't really care) and nipped at her neck as well, leaving a small mark. "You should sleep, it's tiring being marked." She advised, she desperately wanted to run her hands all over Skye, to explore and memorised the girl's body when it wasn't harmed, but that would be too far considering that they just met. So she decided to wait till they've had a bit more time to get to know each other before she went into complete over protective mode of the young wolf.

"Sleep sounds good." Skye slurred a little "Will you guys stay on the bed, cuddling with me?"

"Of course." They two of them replied in sync, pushing themselves closer to Skye, watching as she nodded sleepy and drift of into one of the best sleeps she had in her life.

Natasha yawned, resting her head on the pillow and looked over at Maria, grinning slightly.

"You know, if she didn't ask us to stay cuddling her, I'd take you over to the other side of the bed and fuck you so hard until you forget your name and submit to me." Natasha teased.

Maria looked up startled "Wait, what did I do to warrant a submission fuck?"

Natasha shrugged "Nothing, I just wanted to fuck you, it's been a while."

"It's been a week." Maria cried out softly

"Exactly, you're puffing your chest up again like you own this pack." Natasha replied.

"No I'm not." Maria responded

"True, but you will be next week, so I'm pre-empting you." Natasha explained

"...That's ridiculous, but okay, only because I love being fucked like that, which I might add, is all your fault." Maria scowled playfully at Natasha.

"It's better than me beating the crap out of you and forcing you to submit to be that way."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. We can do it later when Skye isn't clinging to you after you marked her. She adorable."

"She is, and I'm looking forward to it, Maria." Natasha said, grinning.

Maria rolled her eyes fondly, but smiled at her alpha, she was looking forward to it as well.

"Night Natasha." Maria said, closing her eyes, fein sleeping.

"It's the middle of the day." Natasha protested

"Night Natasha." Maria added in a louder voice, a smile on her face as Natasha grumbled and joined them in their nap. Both of them looking forward to later on.


	5. Chapter 5

**September 19** **th** **2014**

 **SKYE**

It had been two days since Skye had woken up comfortably between Maria and Natasha, both women talking quietly to each other, smiles on their faces as their hands weighed heavily on her body. Her neck throbbed pleasantly as she turned to face Natasha, a silly grin on her face and she was almost certain she was running off on the high the marking gave her; Natasha had mentioned earlier that that would happen, it had happened to nearly everyone in the pack. They get marked and seemed to space out for the entire day, sticking close to herself or Maria ("Maria can be super protective when you're in this state, watch out" Natasha said jokingly, as though she wouldn't be overly protective).

A part of her wanted to complain that it seemed really weird to be so clingy to someone they had only just met, but she did not have the energy to, not when she felt this content and safe. It was a new feeling, feeling totally content and safe without having the background emotions; fear, panic, nervousness. Abandonment issues were a bitch, but it was safe to say she had looked at Natasha like she hung the sun and Natasha looked back at her as if she were the centre of her universe. It had been unnerving at first, to see someone look at her like that, she almost back away until both Natasha and Maria squeezed her arm and moved away from her slightly, grounded her and simultaneously letting her know that she was in full control of this situation.

Just that small act made everything better. Whilst Skye had no real choice in joining the pack (honestly, who would chose prison when they had a chance to stay free with one slightly suspicious circumstance?), they have all shown her that despite that, she was in charge of everything else. Skye got to chose how she interacted with the others, who she interacted with and who was allowed to touch her and have access to her open mind. How much she wanted to tell them about herself, how much information she got from them about the situation.

It seemed like pretty basic human rights, but in a situation where everything was opened to a pack of genetically altered human beings who could access her mind at any given point and shift through her memories and take everything they needed to know; it was like giving her the world. Most people would take advantage of that, but here was these people who barely knew her, showering her in trust and love. Making sure she was happy, making sure she wasn't too uncomfortable and giving her what she wanted; answers and control. It made everything about this that much easier and she wasn't sure how she would have handled all of this if she was kept in the dark, if they lied to her and did not show this unfaltering love and concern for her wellbeing.

It made staying with them so much easier. The two of them eased her into some training and into the pack relationships. They would sit and chat away to her, letting her curl up between them with the TV on as background noise as they told her about the pack members. They made her favourite foods, watched whatever she wanted and stopped training when she said she was at her limit – even if they did not believe so.

It was nice, she was slowly getting used to the idea of affectionate touches again and she was loving it, she wasn't going to lie. She's always been big on hugs and overly affectionate with her friends when they give her the chance, so of course she was relishing in the attention that Natasha and Maria were giving her.

Right now, she was lying between the two of them, her legs flung over Maria's and her back leaning against Natasha's chest as she ran her fingers through her hair slowly and Maria fingers danced across her legs. It was nice. It was comfortable. The high from the marking had died down earlier on that day, leading Skye to retreat from them and seeking some solitude. It took them a grand total of five hours to get her back out into the communal area to watch some TV with them. Four hours of being left to herself and one hour of bribing with her favourite foods and drinks. A part of her wanted to be dignified and say that the bribes did not work, but they had her favourite chocolate flaked cheesecake, and well, she couldn't resist that.

Turns out the reason for the bribe was because one of the pack members was coming back for a small two day holiday and wanted to meet Skye.

The Alpha and Beta looked at her sheepishly as the presented her her favourite pizza as they told her that news, causing a not as big of a scowl as it could have been. It was sweet that they were trying to make up for it by bribing her with her favourite foods and drinks, but it was still the principle of not asking but rather telling that she was going to meet this pack member. She would have outright refused to see this person, if it wasn't for the look on Maria's face when Skye said she wasn't sure if she wanted to meet this person, Maria looked like the literally definition of a kicked puppy and Natasha watched them quietly from the back, her eyes mainly resting on Maria with concern, occasionally flickering to Skye. These actions made her think twice, before sighing and giving in.

Skye did not realise one person could hug another so tightly until that moment. She actually had to ask Maria to loosen up a little.

That's how she ended up between Maria and Natasha, anxiously waiting for this mysterious person to arrive. Who ever this person was, they were making Maria a fidgeting mess. The women's knee was constantly shaking up and down, she was checking her phone every two seconds before looking to the door, her face hopeful with every second. Skye just did not get it, if she did not know that Maria's soulmate was on an undercover mission with no holiday's until it was over, she would swear up and down, that it was Sharon that was coming.

It would be nice to meet Maria's mate. Maria always talked about her in this dreamy, awed voice, her eyes unfocused as she got lost in her thoughts. It was cute, seeing the supposedly hard ass deputy director acting like a school girl over her soulmate, but it was also apparent that the women missed her whilst she was away working in an undercover mission, long term with no end date.

Natasha said Maria did not take the initial news very well. It took Peggy, Sharon and Natasha to stop the beta from tearing Fury apart at the news. When they found her, she was on top of him looking ready to kill whilst screaming at him. Apparently Sharon had only been back for three weeks after a six month mission away, undercover again. It was one of Sharon's specialities, rivalling Natasha's skills, which meant Fury preferred sending out Sharon to do these long term mission that were more recon and intel gathering rather than Natasha so that it would leave the Black Widow available for the more combat/undercover missions. Plus, she could still be near for the pack. It was easier to send Sharon away from a long period of time with no contact that it was to send Natasha away.

Maria could have lost her job right there and then, but Fury was understanding. He knew what he was doing was shite, to put it simply. He came down later to apologise to her, promising that after this mission was completed he would not send Sharon out on a long term mission with minimal contact for at least a year. Maria begrudgingly accepted the apology, holding Sharon close (who did not know whether to laugh at the situations Maria seems to get herself into with Nick, or join Maria in her glaring at the director) as she glared at him. It took a few days of gentle coxing from everyone to calm Maria down and apologise to Fury for attacking him.

Maria was vibrating with excitement beside her, causing Skye to frown. It must be Sharon, there is no way Maria would get this excited of just anyone. Especially with the way she was acting, her hands kept flexing as though she was trying to grab on to someone, her eyes were wider than usual, more dilated as they kept flickering to the door rather than watching what was on the TV. Her head would tilt, her face would concentrate slightly before relaxing again, clearly waiting for a reply, and lately, her eyes were totally unfocused, following a movement that was not there.

She was definitely in someone's head, that was for sure and it can be very intimate experience when they were not in their wolf forms (apparently, Skye was yet to experience any of this, but communication via thoughts was the norm when in their other forms. It was sounding more and more like Twilight to Skye, if she were honest.) Which left the option of talking with Sharon, which meant it was her that Skye was meeting. It helped ease some of the nerves that she was feeling at meeting another pack member, and a legacy at that.

Maria's head tilt and splitting grin at the door gave her a few precious moments to prepare herself before the door opened to reveal Sharon Carter, a tall blonde, a lazy smile on her face as she opened the door. She radiated confidence, Skye guessed that came with being the niece of Peggy Carter and being the soul mate of Maria Hill. She walked with purpose into the room, her eyes and smile greeting Natasha warmly, she looked briefly at Skye, her face lighting up in curiosity but ultimately, Skye was not who she was interested in. It was Maria and it only took a second of looking at Natasha and Skye in greeting before she moved swiftly to Maria, easily pulling the women from the couch and into a tight hug.

The two of them stood together, pressing tightly as their hand seemed to skim over each other, checking to make sure neither of them were hurt, whispering in soft, hurried tones as they tried to express to each other how much they missed their other half and how much they loved each other. Skye watched on, not realising that a soft smile took over her face as Maria turned into a soft, mushy person, willingly letting Sharon take lead and it wasn't long until the two were pressing there lips together, arms locked tightly as everything around them was tuned out as they solely focused on each other.

They were keeping everything PG for the moment, which Skye was happy about but she was sensing that it was slowly going to make its way to sex on the floor and not caring who sees. Apparently Natasha sensed that as well as she rolled her eyes and stood up, gently guiding the two of apart with a smile, caution in her eyes as she did so.

"You two have two whole days to fuck and cuddle and do all the romantic shit, and you can do that after you've met Skye, bonded and grow to love her and look after her like a good little wolf." Natasha said teasingly as she turned the blonde to face Skye, who had stood up and was feeling slightly awkward at the exchange.

"Hey" Skye said, lifting her hand up to wave rather awkwardly.

Sharon grinned at her, her warm wrapped tightly around Maria's waist, holding her tightly to her side, "Hey Skye, nice to finally meet you. Maria's been worrying herself sick over whether or not you would be happy in the pack and how she could make all this easy for you. Pretty sure Natasha been worrying as well, but she's very good at hiding it."

Skye almost felt like blushing at what she said, still trying to get use to people declaring that they are invested in her wellbeing, especially when they just met. It was nice as it was slightly uncomfortable. "Thanks, it's nice to meet you too. Maria's been like a giddy child waiting for you." Skye teased. The 'fake it till you make it' philosophy seemed to apply really well here – don't act too uncomfortable, don't seem to nervous. Seem like her usual, cocky and talk back attitude filled self.

Sharon let out a laugh, "yeah, Maria can be rather useless and whiny without me near her and then turns into a child whenever I'm near. It's a good thing she is cute, our fearless commander." Sharon continued to tease, trying to make things easy going for Skye to open up and accept her.

Skye gave Sharon a smile, grateful that the women was not going full on with the whole wolf pack thing like Maria and Natasha were, but she had to give them some leniency, they were the alpha and beta, their genetic make up and wolf instincts were much different from the rest of the make. They are the protects of the pack, they make sure everyone is happy and healthy and would defend everyone until their dying breath. It was still a nice change.

Sharon glanced back at Skye and then at Maria and Natasha. The two of them were obviously hovering around the girl, making sure she was happy with the arrangement, but they were not giving her time to breath. Time to give Skye a break, she thought to herself.

"Anyways" Sharon dragged out, moving forward and gently grabbing Skye's upper arm, quickly glancing at her to make sure she was okay with this, "I'm going to take Skye for some time away from you two, you over bearing mother hens. Enjoy your day together, don't be too loud and Natasha, please be gentle, I do want to spend some time with my mate without her wincing." Sharon instructed as she began to guide Skye away from the two, who stood there looking extremely confused.

Once they were further away from the top dogs, Sharon dropped her arms and looked over at Skye, watching the way she took in her surroundings and the winding hallways.

"The hallway was specifically designed like this so that if anyone got down here who wasn't supposed to be here, they would get lost. It's kind of like a structural security. It helps keep our secrets, secrets." Sharon explained, as she carefully navigated them to her room.

"Suppose that is one way to do it." Skye replied "Honestly I was expecting so much more from an agency that hid itself from the world, and probably would have continued to do so if they never wanted to take credit for the Avengers, well more like responsibility for the Avengers. I don't think the government would have been too amused with a bunch of super power humans running around without anyone guiding them or holding them responsible for their actions. Well, more like someone to blame for if the Avengers went sideways and ended up causing a catastrophe." Skye continued, letting her thoughts lose.

"That's very true, my aunt Peggy said that a lot of the government officials were trying to force S.H.I.E.L.D to pay for the damages caused by the Avengers defending New York from the Chitauri invasion, but between Nick, Maria and Aunt Peggy they basically told them that it was the governments problem, not theirs. They couldn't be held accountable for a literal god going on a rampage, only that they would send their agents to help assist with cleaning up the mess and deal with the alien technology that was left behind. Which of course has led to a lot of missions and teams being formed to hunt down the alien technology that was taken before we could get it. It's been causing a lot of hassle for Nick. Anyways, what kind of thing were you expecting when you came to the base? We can't exactly go all out, considering we are in the middle of Washington D.C." Sharon explained, finishing with the question as she turned slightly to look at Skye as she motioned for her to enter the room she had led them to.

"Huh, I did not realise so much alien technology was taken that they actually had to form teams over it. When I was with the Rising Tide we often realised data of where and when some alien technology was up for auction in exchange for them telling us everything about it so that we could realise the information to the public. It was very few and far between and none of them have yet to come up with an explanation with what the technology can do and a lot of the research had been shut down due to S.H.I.E.L.D raids. Honestly, I don't really know, I guess something more like lasers everywhere, security guards at each door and stoic faces everywhere with no emotions, kinda like robot employees with a bland building, but I never expected any of this." Skye explained, waving her hands around slightly as she explained and spun, taking in the room. "Holy crap, your a game geek." Skye said gleefully as she took in all the gaming systems, "please tell me you have Mario Kart."

Sharon grinned at her, "We do have Mario Kart. We can play that the now if you would like?" she offered, moving over to the gaming lounge in her and Maria's room. If anyone everyone asked Maria outside if the pack, she would scoff at the idea of Mario Kart and gaming in general, but she was a total nerd and it was adorable when she got competitive over the games, especially the Wii ones.

"Hell yeah." Skye said excitedly, feeling normal for the first time since she came to S.H.I.E.L.D, which felt like forever, but in actual fact had only been a few exhausting days. So much had happened in these days that it had honestly taken a lot out of her, along with the constant nausea that came with the injections, it made her just want to sleep, but she knew how much it would mean to Natasha and Maria, especially Maria, that she meet and bonded with Sharon. If Sharon loved gaming then it was going to be simple enough, Skye was a total geek, and proud of it. She had her favourite TV shows, favourite superheros and comics and loved playing games of all types.

Sharon smiled as she set up the game, both of them getting comfortable on the couch as the prepared themselves from several intense rounds of Mario Kart.

"I'm going to kick your ass, Carter." Skye teased, shoved her shoulder against Sharon's.

Sharon grinned at the younger women, "in your dream, tiny pup."

Skye let out a laugh, "that is a terrible nickname but it is so on!"

The two of them went on to spend several hours playing video games across the different platforms, each of them taking half of the wins. It was fun and relaxing and it was exactly what Skye needed after the intense day she has been having. She looked over at Sharon, who looked as equally relaxed as she did. It was nice, this peaceful harmony that they had, there was no exceptions of her being something greater than she was – or worse, her being more terrible than expected. Sharon gave her the much needed time to just stop and take everything in.

Which made Skye more grateful for the choice she made. She could have been locked away in a high security prison, she could be alone and scared that she would spend the rest of her life in there with no contact with anyone. It would literally be her worst nightmare. She was happy that she made a decision in a shitty situation and ended up with a weird, genetic modification and family that apparently will love her unconditionally without even meeting her and would go to the ends of the universe to protect her. Skye could barely remember the last time someone tried to go above and beyond the call of being foster parents or friends. It sounded like Stockholm Syndrome, but she has thought this out, sure she is still pissed that she was basically forced into this but it Natasha can go from being a wanted target by S.H.I.E.L.D, who were ready to kill her, to one of their most trusted agents. Surely, she could get over being given that ultimatum, because in the end, what she did was illegal, highly so, and if it wasn't for S.H.I.E.D, she could be locked away somewhere, or, she would have been given a similar offer by another agency. Work for them or go to jail. It wasn't an unusual situation for skilled hackers to get into.

Plus Skye always liked the idea of being a superhero and having abilities that no one else did and this was her chance, sort of, plus hopefully she gets a family out of this.

"What are you thinking about?" Sharon asked quietly. The women had turned the TV over to some TV show that had been quietly playing in the background as Skye got lost in her thoughts.

"Just thinking about the situation I'm in. How it could have been much worse. How I could have been left to fade to nothing but a distant memory. Instead I've been given the chance to change, to become something greater than I was...plus... having some really caring people in my life." Skye spoke quietly, too afraid to say aloud that they loved her, because how could they love her? They say that they do, but how? Look at her, a orphan hacker who's greatest achievement is hacking into S.H.I.E.L.D. It's not that great of an achievement, it shouldn't even be looked at one considering what she did was wrong.

Sharon slid closer to the women, looking as though she was going to wrap Skye in her arms but kept her distance. She understood that Skye was still getting used to the idea of people caring for her and wanting to make sure she is okay. She has Maria and Natasha going full force with her in the respect of showing that they care about her and constantly touching her. Skye needed someone right now to keep their distance and wait until she said she was okay with it. She needed someone to respect the boundaries that she had. It wasn't as if Skye did not like Maria and Natasha basically falling over themselves to ensure she is happy and always in contact with them, it's just she couldn't handle anyone else doing it. The two of them were different because they were the alpha and beta and so it caused Skye to react differently.

"Skye, we more than care about you. We love you. I know it seems weird, that only a few days ago you just had yourself and now you this whole pack of agents ready to do anything for you, but I need you to know that we do love and care about you. I get that you might not be ready to admit that to yourself just yet, and that you're not ready for this type of relationship with people, but we are here for when you are. Okay? If you don't want to talk about this until you are ready, then that's okay as well, just let us know when you are, and if you want people to keep their distance from you, to know touch you until you give them the okay – and yes, that include Natasha and Maria – then that is okay as well, we will let all of them know right now. Okay? We understand, you did not come in like most of us, and we understand that you will be hesitant in regards to all of this, it is a lot to take in. It's even scarier when you realise that yeah, you could have been left on your own, but you haven't, and when you are ready, you will have this amazing supportive network of people waiting for you. Until that time, we will be here for you silently. Also, this is probably more full on than what Natasha and Maria have been doing and I'm sorry, I just wanted you to know this." Sharon explained, hoping that Skye would understand where she was coming from.

Skye stared at her in shock, she wasn't expecting a speech of love from the women. She thought maybe Sharon would roll her eyes at her and shove off her feelings, but she acknowledged them, told her that she was loved and did not downplay the situation that in Skye's eyes, they could be considered the bad guys for giving her that ultimatum.

Sharon watched on as Skye just sat there, mouth agape, blinking slowly as though she couldn't quite believe what happened.

"It was actually Aunt Peggy who asked for you to join. She was in Melinda's head for their first mission, wanting to make sure everything went okay. Apparently she saw you, some scrappy little kid who had waaaaay big eyes. So brown and pure that they could melt the coldest of hearts, but Aunt Peggy said you look like a wounded wolf, doing anything and everything they could to protect themselves whilst somehow still looking and craving love and acceptance. She got on the phone to Nick and demanded that you join the programme, that she would take you under her wing if she had too." Sharon continued on to explain, this time moving closer to the girl till their legs touch and she opened up her arms for her, sensing the women needed the physical touch.

Skye flung herself into Sharon's arms, curling around her as she kept the tears at bay. She felt stupid for being so vulnerable around someone she just met, but this someone she just met told her how she was loved, because she was now family, how someone took one look at her through someone else's mind and saw past the facade she kept up for years and year, hoping no one would look to closely at her and see how broken she felt.

Sharon wrapped her arms around Skye's back, holding her tightly as the young women shook slightly in her arms, holding her back just as tightly. Neither of them said anything, just sat holding on to each other as the TV played softly in the background. Sharon willing to wait however long it was until Skye felt better, until she felt safe enough to let go and face the world head on after the confessions Sharon made. She meant every word she said to Skye and would continue to say them for as long as Skye needed the encouragement, Maria had been right, the girl had a lost look in her eyes even if she did not know it herself. She was yearning for physical contact and for someone to show her love and affection, even if she wasn't willing to admit it. All Sharon could hope was that she did not push the girl too far and cause her to retreat from them. They had made some really good bonding progress this morning and she genuinely liked the girl, they shared a lot of the same interests and had similar mannerisms that was going to drive Natasha and Melinda crazy.

"You okay?" Sharon murmured, smoothing down Skye's hair after the shaking had stopped.

"Yeah...just wasn't expecting any of that, if I'm being honest." Skye mumbled back.

"You needed to hear it." Sharon said simply, not bothering to sugar coat anything with the girl, knowing she would appreciate it more.

"Yeah." Skye replied, not exactly willing to discuss it further today. Too much emotion for one day, it was exhausting. "Can we not mention this? Just for a while... I just, it's exhausting."

"Of course, just let me, or Nat or Maria, know when you're ready to talk. Do you want a nap or food first?" Sharon asked easily, moving her hand from Skye's hair to her back, rubbing smooth circles on it.

"Food. Definitely food, I'm starving. Food." Skye replied, a smile making it's way onto her face.

"Alright then, lets get some food. We should go find Maria and Nat as well, and oh, by the way, I haven't forgotten that you have ties to auctions for the alien technology. I might need to get that information off of you to help out my team, if you don't mind." Sharon said, pulling them to their feet as they began the short journey to find the other two pack members.

Skye blinked "yeah, sure, I guess, just let me know when you want the information and I'll get it, should be easy enough after hacking S.H.I.E.L.D." Skye teased, walking along side her.

Sharon laughed and flung an arm around Skye's shoulder, "Yeah, yeah, big shot. You'll only got up to level four, get to level seven then I might be impressed."

Skye scoffed "I'd like to see you get passed S.H.I.E.L.D's obvious dummy levels first! You probably couldn't even start the process of a hack!"

"I don't need to, because I have the access already." Sharon flung back at her, laughing as Skye pouted at her response.

Yeah, things were certainly starting to look up for Skye, especially when she had Sharon here to act as a buffer between the affectionate Natasha and Maria and herself. She smiled at the other women, leaning more into the embrace as they walked to their destination of food. Today was a good day.


	6. Chapter 6

**January 27** **th** **2004**

 **Maria and Natasha**

Maria was sprawled across Natasha's large bed, exhausted but was resting her head on the women's chest as Natasha softly ran her hand through Maria's hair, almost lulling her to sleep, but she needed to stay awake. The two of them were lying in silence as they read over files for work; Maria reading over mission plans and after action reports and Natasha proof reading her own mission reports. Maria sighed and sat up, ignoring the nausea she was experiencing and started frowning at the mission report in her hand, it was terrible. Bloody Barton, never did his reports correctly, she was convinced it was just to fuck with her. Fury put her on 'Barton Mission Report Duty' and Coulson was on 'Barton Mission Handler Duty.' Of course Barton was on his best behaviour for Coulson but would go to the ends of the Earth to piss her off and make her spend more time on his shit than doing anything else.

It was irritating.

She grumbled and tilted her head up at Natasha and glared at her, because who else was she supposed to be angry at? Barton was not around and Natasha was his partner in crime, she was the closest she could get to yelling and almost killing Barton.

"Barton is doing my head in. Make him stop fucking up his reports." She said angrily, her tone verging on whining.

Natasha raised an eyebrow at the women lying next to her, so much angry over a mission report. "What do you expect me to do about it? I'm only his partner, not his handler. Ask Coulson or Fury to sort of him out." She replied in amusement, only slightly concerned about Maria's mood. It wasn't anything new, she's been moody and irritable over the past two days and in all honestly she probably could get Barton to lay of Maria but she wanted to see how far the women would go to stop Barton from being a shit.

"He listens to you more than he does me or Coulson. Plus Fury says now that I'm deputy director I have to find a way to deal with problematic agents on my own without his help, which is bullshit, this is Clint fucking Barton we are talking about, the dickhead doesn't listen to anyone." Maria complained, sitting up and flinging his report at Natasha like a petulant child.

"God you're a grumpy bitch when you're tired." Natasha grumbled, picking up Clint's report to see what exactly was wrong with it.

 _'Mission #666_

 _Agent: Clint Barton_

 _Mission Overview: Badass man with badass arrows kills some mean old man that were involved in human trafficking. The End.'_

Natasha frowned, there was taking the piss and there was _taking the piss._ This was ridiculous, it held essentially no details on the mission, or what happened. She knew that Barton took his mission reports seriously and would sometimes spend hours on them with Coulson to make sure that they held all the details that he might have missed whilst he was in the mission mind space. So why was he doing this?

She sighed and flung the report onto a nearby chair and opened her arms for Maria. The brunette slipped easily in, pressing herself close against Natasha and clung tightly to her as she rested her head on Natasha's shoulder and blinked slowly, her eyes beginning to lose focus as her body relaxed slightly. Strange. Natasha frowned at that and tilted her head slightly to get a better look at the women lying against her. Her breath was slowly losing its gentle rhythm the more she stared and blinked at nothing.

PTSD.

How could she have missed it? She should have been able to spot that from a mile away, but instead she just passed it off as a side effect of the serum. None of them really considered if Maria would experience any PTSD or traumatised by what happened to her. They stupid believed that the women would be able to just shrug it off. it was clear that Maria was very good at hiding the symptoms and the effect it was having on it.

She gently placed her hand on Maria's shoulder, squeezing tightly to give her something to anchor onto, to pull her out of whatever she was seeing. She slowly moved her hand down to Maria's back, slowly rubbing circles on it, hoping to help pull her out of what she was seeing.

It took a good five minutes before Maria took a shuddering breath as she pulled back into focus and looked up at Natasha, blinking blearily.

"Sorry," she mumbled, her head falling back against Natasha shoulder. All of the remaining energy she had left to keep herself awake to go over the mission reports had left her, but she was too fearful to go to sleep, too scared of the endless nightmares of being torn apart into oblivion.

"No, I'm sorry, I should have notice, if not, Peggy should have noticed. One of us should have realised that you would experience some sort of trauma from almost dying and being forced to under go an experimental genetic alteration. Guess we got too caught up in the idea of you being the cold, deputy director, where everything just bounced off you." Natasha explained, holding the women tightly, slowly rocking them.

"You're rocking us. It's weird." Maria mumbled, but did not deny the comfort that Natasha was giving her.

The two of them sat in silence for a long time, simply holding each other as they processed their own emotions to the situation.

"I can't sleep." Maria confessed quietly, " I can't rest. I can't close my eyes. I can't go into the hallway by myself without freaking out and I haven't been down to the labs since the incident happened. I'm scared."

Natasha continued to sit silently, letting Maria talk aloud and explain the situation to her and to herself. It was good that she was talking, but Natasha suspected that was the bond pushing for her to talk. It's been three weeks since this happened, three weeks of Maria being exhausted, of pushing herself day in and day out to get the job done. Three weeks of dealing with petty agents, wolves, emotions that aren't her own, her own confusing emotions and weariness. It was a never ending cycle that was finally taking it's toll on her.

"It's okay Maria," Natasha cooed gently, "we can work on those things, we can fix that no problem. It may take awhile, but that's okay because we will still reach our goal of making things normal for you again."

Maria sat up and looked at her, her eyes wide, vulnerable and trusting. "Yeah?"

"Yeah. First thing's first, get changed, it's late and we have a mission in the morning. You're sleeping with me tonight." Natasha said firmly, adding a slight alpha edge to it to allow minimal complaining from Maria. The women was exhausted and it would not help her to fight Natasha on this, not tonight at least, she can fight Natasha on using her advantage once she gets a proper nights sleep.

It only took a couple of minutes of shifting and grumbling before the two women found a comfortable position to sleep in. Maria had entwined herself with Natasha, resting her head on Natasha's chin and clung tightly to Natasha's waist. It took even less time for Maria to fall asleep.

Natasha stayed wake for a bit longer, contemplating tomorrow's mission and how to deal with Maria. She would have to consult with Peggy on this, she was slowly starting to feel out of her depths with the beta. Natasha just sighed softly, it was a problem that she would deal with tomorrow, right now, she just felt like following Maria's example and sleeping, extremely grateful that it came easily for once.

* * *

 **February 3** **rd** **2004**

 **Maria and Natasha**

Maria sighed as she made her way back down to the wolves floor after a meeting with Fury. Fury was adamant that they move forward with the project and get the third batch of agents ready and prepped to go in no longer than three weeks. They have went from one year between wolves to roughly one month, according to Fury's proposed start date of the 24th February.

The beta's, including herself, only just finished the course of injections a few days ago and were due to shift for the first time tonight. They have spent days watching the videos of the alpha's first few times of shifting and watching the way Peggy help coax them to change. It was a way to mentally prepare themselves for the pain of the first change, after the initial change, the rest of the shifts should come with relative ease.

Then again, who knows. Maria was unsure if this was going to be different or the same as the alpha's. The betas were only slightly different than the alpha's in the fact that they did not hold as much sway as they did and that the alphas were generally stronger than they were. If it was going to be different for the alpha's then there would be a high chance that it would be different for the omega's and that it might be more painful for them.

Only time would tell.

Maria sent a quick text to Natasha to tell her that she was in the lift and to come meet her. Maria was grateful that Natasha made good on her promise to help her out. The alpha had been walking with the hallways with her, always meeting her at the lift no matter what the time was and if she could not make it, Peggy or one of the other alphas' would came and walk with her till she got to her destination.

It was helping, that along with her weekly therapy chats with Peggy, which was helping her to process the traumatic event that she had went through. There was still some hiccups of course, even with one of the alpha's being with her, her mind would play tricks and would convince herself that there was someone there, ready to pounce and tear into her. It would set her off, her anxiety sky rocketing into a panic attack and a sleepless night.

She was managing though, that was the main thing. She was slowly finding her groove again, in where she lay in the hierarchy of things. It may have stupidly been messing with her mind, but she was in charge of these agents, yet four of them could easily out do her now due to being Alpha's and her being a Beta. It had taken some time and consideration on how to proceed with the situation that they were in but they finally decided to make sure nothing would cause a conflict for Maria between Fury and the wolves, but if she was to conveniently look away for five minutes, it wouldn't hurt either.

Maria smiled at Natasha as she exited the lift.

"Hey." she greeted warmly, falling in line with the alpha.

"Hey, how was your meeting with Fury?" Natasha asked casually.

Maria scoffed "It was fantastic. We've to get the next batch of agents ready to receive their first injection on the 24th of this month. He also wants me back at work tomorrow, say's I have to deal with the World Security Council and keeping their noses out of certain places."

"So soon? We haven't even had time to document how the change will effect the beta's. There could be an unforeseen difference that might effect the next batch. Are you able to go back to work tomorrow?" Natasha asked.

Maria shrugged "I don't really have a choice, I guess he is having a hard time covering up my leave. I was not away on any field mission nor had I filed for annual leave, so it will seem very suspicious to other agents if they decided to get nosy. Besides, I have to get back to work at some point, might as well just rip off the bandaid the now. Also, I tried telling Fury that to no avail, the only person who he might listen to in that regards would be Peggy. I understand his hurry, he has put a lot of money and staff time into this to have such little results on the paper."

"Little results? Maria there are four successful wolves with another four on their way, how is that not successful? How many agencies can say they have managed to alter their agent's DNA to create a pack with functioning hierarchy and mental links? You could just file for personal leave for another few weeks, pretty sure you've racked up a few good months of leave." Natasha responded, frowning a little.

Maria sighed "The longer I'm away, the harder it will be for me to go back. I don't understand Fury's thought process, he been acting a little bit weird lately, I think he's slowly starting to get a lot of big projects of the ground after getting permission."

"I thought Operation: Shadows was not on file? Nor were the WSC or Pierce were aware of it?" Natasha questioned as they reached the communal area.

"It's not. I think it's more for a personal goal of knowing that if he can turn agents into super being wolves, he can do anything."

"Makes sense, I guess." Natasha said.

"That's literally what my job is, say it make sense and then actually try and make sense of everything and make it work." Maria grumbled, waving lazily at the others in the room.

"Sounds like you had an interesting meeting. I'll have a talk with him again about this. See if I can stretch it to two months, that at least would give you a full month of getting used to the new bodies. It would not do us any good to have eight wolves who are unsure of themselves and their bodies." Peggy said from where sat on the couch, a book lying to her left, forgotten.

"Good luck with getting Fury to change anything, he's so stubborn sometimes." Victoria complained, clearly remembering a previous time where she tried to change Fury's mind.

"But you're forgetting Vic, you're not Peggy. Fury has a soft spot for good old Peg's here." Tobias said, throwing a wink at Peggy (who rolled her eyes in response)

"I still think Fury's making a mistake. I still don't understand why he is rushing all of this." Jayden responded, "especially with the situation with Maria."

"Or maybe the situation with Maria is the reason he is speeding this all up." Natasha offered up from her spot on the couch with Maria. Everyone turned to look at her to explain further.

"Think about it. Those wolves got in and out of here without any of us knowing. They attack Maria and it's clear revenge in on their minds. Fury will be wanting to speed up the process so that we can hunt these wolves down. No doubt at some point in the future he's just going to terminate the failed test subjects and will make us do it, he just needs enough of us due to the varying strengths and weakness of the other wolves, but in short, we have a leak and no one knows who it is." Natasha explained.

They all sat back in silence as they took in this suggestion.

"..It would make sense." Maria said slowly, mainly focusing on keep her heart and breaths steady. "You never told me they got away." she accused.

Everyone in the room flinched.

"We figured it would be better to tell you once things had settled down and when you were starting to get better." Peggy informed her calmly, setting the tone for the conversation.

"So you got to chose what you thought was best for me?" Maria snapped.

"Maria, focus on what is actually the issue at hand. If you honestly think we acted on what we thought would be best for you, you are wrong. You're seemingly forgetting that we can get into your head and our weekly chats have been very insightful and you would have been able to deal with this better once you were more sure of everything." Peggy replied firmly, fixing Maria with a stare that left no room for arguing.

Maria back down, sulking and glaring lightly at them. "Whatever. Who do you suggest would have leaked information to them? Or helped them get in here."

"If we knew that then we wouldn't be having this discussion, Hill." Tobias sneered.

"Oh gee, Tobias! Silly me! I thought I said suggest, not do you know who did this?" Maria said sarcastically, sneering right back at the alpha.

"Might want to control the mouth on your bitch, Romanoff, or one day she might find herself without one." Tobias threatened.

"Want to try that again, Tobias?" Natasha said quietly, standing up to stare down the man. The room was silent as they watched the two alpha's go head to head as Tobias walked right up into Natasha's personal space.

"Yeah, your fucking mutt has a big mouth on her. It's going to end badly for her one day." He replied, equally as quiet.

Natasha moved swiftly, easily climbing up the man and using her signature thigh move and had him on the ground within seconds, slowly chocking the air out of his lungs. Tobias struggled under the women, doing everything possible to try and throw her off.

"Natasha that's enough." Peggy commanded, watching the scene with a sharp eye.

Natasha easily bounded to her feet and dragged Tobias to his knees.

"Threaten Maria again and do something much worse that you don't even want to think about. You've seen my files, you know what I can do and Peggy wont be there to stop me." She threatened him quietly, letting him go and moving over to Maria, quickly pulling the women close in a protective embrace.

"Tobias, you're comments are uncalled for. Apologise when you actually mean it. If not, face the repercussions of your actions. You've failed to see how the situations affects Maria, you only saw a way to ridicule her. It is unacceptable." Peggy said with authority, indicating the end of the discussion as they all sat down, sighs escaping their lips.

Natasha refused to let Maria go for the rest of the night, nor would she let her or Tobias out of her sight. Carefully watching him in case he tries something stupid.

"So our next plan of actions is find the leak and get the new wolves ready?" Jayden said, breaking the silence.

"Has anyone actually approached them yet?" Victoria asked, seeming amused by the idea of no one actually talking to the agents yet.

"Nope." Natasha simply said. "I've been a preoccupied with my current wolf."

Jayden and Tobias just shrugged in their response. They have been busy setting things up and running missions to talk to the new wolves.

"Fury or myself will be talking to them this week and then we will bring them down to meet all of you afterwards and prepare them for what is about to happen. I will need all of you working together for this, we are expanding our numbers and I can not have any of you being hostile to each other, you need to be setting an example for the new ones." Peggy supplied.

They all nodded their understanding of the situation. A ping on Maria tablet caused them all to turn to see the deputy director with a deep frown on her face.

"What's wrong, Maria?" Victoria asked.

"There's been an anthrax attack. Fury wants us on it."


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: Hey! So it may or may not have been 2 months since last update, but things have been hectic on my end. I moved back home plus was dealing with some shitty stuff, so I am sorry that it is not as long as my chapter normally are but I wanted to get something out to you guys before the holidays.**

 **On the upside, expect Bobbi making an appearance in the next chapter or so!**

 **Honestly, any feedback would be lovely and any comments you have in regards to the fic would make my holiday! Thanks guys**

 **September 21** **st** **2014**

 **Skye**

Having Sharon around had been fun. Skye had grown close to the women during their short time together, she found the women to be witty, caring and very respectful of others. Her domineering presence allowed Skye some time apart from the clingy Alpha and Beta.

Some much needed separation.

Sharon had rolled her eyes when the two insisted on keeping her close, easily countering any argument they had; " _the last time you keep a wolf near you twenty four seven, Natasha, was Maria, and look how that turned out! The two of you can't bare to part from each other and howl when you guys aren't near each other. So, it's Sharon and Skye bonding time, the Double S's._ "

Skye was sad to see her go, but apparently Sharon could only swindle two days out of Fury and that was simply because whoever she was babysitting whilst she was undercover was away and she was unable to follow and watch them. It worked out nicely for them, even though Fury wanted Sharon to stay and survey the area, she fought hard against that saying she will pull the soulmate card if she had too and Fury finally relented.

Sharon's last day with them was spent watching the Star Wars movies (she recently had an urge to watch them) and spent five minutes arguing which order they should watch them in before decided to do it chronologically following the story line. They had bought a bunch of wine and junk food to go with their marathon and talked randomly about things that were happening in the pack with the night finishing with Maria and Sharon retiring early to their room with sleezy grins on their faces (which caused Skye to realise Maria was definitely the bottom in their relationship).

Which left Natasha and Skye to find something exciting to do by themselves. Filled with vodka (Natasha scoffed at the wine and whipped out the vodka after one glass) Natasha decided that they would play the wii which resulted them falling over themselves a lot and giggling, which soon turned into uncontrollable laughter when they could hear Sharon and Maria. The two had forgotten to silence their room. It wasn't long until the two decided to go to bed as well, Skye purposely flinging herself onto Natasha bed after stripping down to minimal clothing and sprawled across the bed, trying to take up as much room as possible.

Natasha rolled her eyes and easily lifted Skye up, pulling the covers back and dumping Skye back down and crawling in beside her. Natasha lay there, staring at Skye with a certain softness that Skye had come to associate with Natasha when she was about to say something mushy.

"What?" She had mumbled

"Sharon's been good for you, hopefully her undercover mission will end soon. She makes you and Maria happy." Natasha said simply, raising a hand and pushing hair out of Skye's face.

Skye rolled her eyes "We're all connected through our brrraaaaiiiinnns, Natasha, everyone will make everyone happy." she giggled and cuddled into the alpha, wrapping her arms tightly around the women's waist.

Natasha had simply sighed and held of closer "of course Skye, you're weird when you are drunk, go to sleep tiny pup."

"Fucking Sharon and her nicknames." Skye had grumbled before passing out happily.

 **September 30** **th** **2014**

 **Skye**

It has been over fourteen days since her first injection, Skye has officially completed all injections and almost completed the whole ordeal, all that was left to do was actually transform into a wolf, which she said she wanted to do with May here.

The past two weeks here had been amazing, to say at the least. It was certainly better than anywhere else she had lived; she felt loved, she was warm and never hungry and had easy access to internet (it didn't take much to please Skye). Natasha and Maria, as promised, helped set her foundations for training in the most common practices of self defence, it also helped solidify their cover. The training often left Skye bruised and sore and she landed on her ass more often than not. If she had any other trainers, Skye had no doubt she would have given up after the second day, but Natasha and Maria were nothing but patient and encouraging, if on the strict side.

Natasha had almost scoffed the first day Skye showed her the stances that Ward had taught and demonstrated the drills she was taught.

" _Thats all well and good if you are Ward, but he seems to forget that you are about half his weight and size, these stances would not be that good for you, they may help you occasionally but these stances would be better for you. Place yours foot more to the right, no, plant it Skye. Yes, then lean into it and put your hands like this- yes perfect! There we go, this would be the best stance to start you off with, it gives you the best chance at blocking any attacks coming your way and a good start position if you throw the first punch." Natasha had lectured Skye as she guided Skye into the correct stance_

" _So, do I tell Ward that he has been teaching me wrong or do I play dumb?" Skye questioned a litle while later once they were settled into punching drills._

" _What do you think we should do?" Maria questioned casually as she circled Skye, gently kicking her leg back into the proper stance._

" _Well, Ward is the only one on the team that we are unsure of. He's not in the pack and he hasn't obtained the trust and loyalty of the team that Coulson has. If he notices that my skills are at a higher place than it should be then he might be suspicious as to how I learned it all in such a short time. We could play it off as you and Natasha training me, but that might bring even more suspicion and cause him to look more into this and thats definitely something we do not want happening. Soooo, I guess I'm going with play dumb until the perfect moment comes for me to outshine him and show off to everyone?" Skye said,working through her thoughts._

 _Maria shared a smirking glance with Natasha, the girl was good and was developing a thought pattern to protecting the pack and it was excellent progress as some people take a while longer to adapt to automatically thinking and acting in the best manor for the pack and not just themselves._

" _Excellent answer Skye, it's a good plan. I might speak to Coulson or Fury about officially changing your S.O to Melinda. Surely with what we have saw so far shows minimal progress. I do understand though that he was only training you for like, what, two to three days? He still should be showing you the proper stances for someone your size. I'll talk to Fury actually, see what we can do, he might make us wait before actually making any changes." Maria said, leaning against the wall, watching for Skye's reaction._

 _Skye shrugged in response,"whatever you think is best for us, Maria."_

 _Maria simply smiled in response as Natasha barked out some more drills for Skye to follow._

It was going to be slightly strange to pretend that Skye didn't know what she was doing, but she would do anything to protect that pack, it wasn't as though she was advance in any form of martial arts, she was just slightly better than she should be at her stage. It did help that she had access to training memories of her pack mates which help speed some learning up.

Other than the training, it was great fun staying here and she was going to have a hard time leaving it, leaving Maria and Natasha. Skye had gotten used to them fussing over her and had secretly become to adore it. It wasn't often that someone was watching out for how she slept, how she ate and her general health and happiness.

Skye may have also, kind of, had sex with them.

That was going to be a whole other conversation that she was going to have with Fitz and Simmons, not before she scolds them for not telling her that they were soul mates. To be fair, she should have notice, and under normal circumstances she would have, however, she was busy worrying over having her genetics modified, jags and puking up her guts.

Either way the sex was fantastic and she was so gossiping with Simmons over this.

Currently, the three of them were lounging on the couches, waiting for May to call them to tell them when she would be arriving.

Skye sigh loudly and dramatically flung her legs over the other two women and pouted at them, waiting for them to respond to her.

"We're not going to dignify that with a proper response" Maria replied lazily as she read some important information on her tablet. Boring, important information.

"It may be boring but it is necessary." Maria defended, putting the tablet down and looking at the youngest.

Skye simply smiled innocently back at her "Just bored, Ria. I'm bored,you're reading boring stuff and I think Nat has fallen asleep. Just sayin' we could use something to liven this place up!" Skye exclaimed and launched herself at Maria with a smirk.

The pair fell to the ground, easily rolling away from Natasha (who was wide awake and watching through half closed eyes) to not disturb her. Skye quickly straddled Maria and pinned her hands above her head and grin triumphantly at the women as she squirmed underneath Skye.

"Since I have you at my mercy, I believe we should do something fun, like, pranking Fury, blowing spitballs at your robot, hack Stark? Something!" Skye pleaded. She didn't do too well when she was in an enclosed area with nothing to do.

"We can do something fun, but all of them means I'll have by ass handed to me by Fury. Think of something else – no sex – that doesn't involve someone outside the pack." Maria said and easily rolled out from underneath Skye and pulled them both to their feet.

Before Skye could come up with a reply or an idea, Natasha phone rang with her special ringtone that she reserved specifically for Melinda.

"Heeey babe,whats up?" Natasha said sweetly into the phone, dragging out her words as she sat up with ease.

" _Hey Nat, I need your help – well, actually, we need Skye's help._ " Melinda replied, they could faintly hear arguing in the background. Seems like they had a dilemma.

"I'm here with Maria as well. What's up?" Skye questioned, sitting down next to Natasha, pulling her laptop close.

" _We're currently working on the missing asset case of Dr. Franklin Hall. We have discovered that he was actually kidnapped by Ian Quinn-_ "

"Ian Quinn? The genius, philanthropist that is single handedly revolutionising the worlds technology?" Skye interrupted, in slight disbelief that this man was behind the kidnapping.

" _Single handedly? Has she not seen our night night guns? Think she needs glasses, Simmons._ " Fitz grumbled quietly in the background, only loud enough for the pack to hear him.

May pointedly ignored Fitz for the time being, not wanting to start something unexplainable on the plane with Coulson and Ward so close by. " _Yes, that genius, philanthropist kidnapped the Doctor and is currently holding him hostage. As far as we are aware, he not being tortured, but that could change any minute. The problem that we have is that we have tracked Quinn and Franklin to Malta._ "

Maria and Natasha groaned.

"Well fuck." Natasha grumbled

" _My thoughts exactly._ " May agreed.

"You'll have to be careful, Melinda" Maria warned, "don't take this lightly, I won't be able to protect you if this goes wrong and no doubt once Fury hears about this you will either get a slap on the wrist or tracked."

"Let's hope for a successful outcome then will a little slap on the wrist." Natasha said, "we can't have Melinda track as anyone above her level will be able to access that information and that could ruin this whole operation."

"So, I'm confused, what's going on?" Skye questioned, looking at her superiors.

"Shield has no jurisdiction in Malta and we can be held accountable for anything that we do, no diplomatic immunity, no using our government to hide stuff under the rug. If you get caught there on behalf of Shield, it will not only ruin your life but also ruin Shield's reputation and standing order amongst the intelligence agencies." Maria explained.

" _We've found a way in, Quinn is holding a party to talk about a new project of his, a newly discovered element called gravitantium. His place is highly secured along with the usual invisible electric field and guards round the clock. The only way the wont end so badly for Shield is if we are invited in, but for some unknown reason, I can't see Quinn being in a rush to invite us."_ May deadpanned.

"This is complicated. I honestly can't think of a way around this that won't have a high chance of negatively impacting us." Maria mused, looking annoyed.

Skye was silently tapping away on her laptop before she looked up "What if we sent me in?" She questioned them.

Maria and Natasha paused and looked her.

" _No._ " Melinda quickly denied.

"Hold on." Natasha said, looking closer at Skye, before turning to Maria, " Skye is officially not with Shield yet, she is still listed as a consultant until she leaves us, right?

"She is, which means she can go and do whatever the hell she please in Malta without serious repercussions." Maria replied slowly.

"Plus" Skye said cheerily "I have an invitation."


	8. Chapter 8

**September 30** **th** **2014**

 **Skye**

Natasha had waited along side her as May came to collect her with a tense face. The two women smile at each other but kept their hands to themselves as there was agents around. Maria had simply warned May in person about the dangers, again, before walking off.

Probably to go yell at some level 1 agents, Skye assumed. Maria said that they were all idiots and needed to be sent back to the academy.

Skye greeted everyone on the plane with a large smile, pulling Simmons and Fitz into a tight hug and awkwardly greeting Ward. She felt that if her introduction to Shield had been different, and if she had stayed on the plane for those to weeks, bonding with the team during the missions, then she might have had a thing for Ward.

Of course all that would have disappeared anyways when she met her soulmate.

Coulson greeted her with a grim smile as he lead them all to the console to give her a full update on the mission.

Now, she was sitting in taxi, after flying for a few hours on a commercial flight to Malta. Skye had to try and make her cover as believable as possible. Flying commercial was nowhere near as fun or luxurious as flying on the bus, but she endured and focused on the mission for the entire time, running her cover over and over in her head.

The ride in the taxi to Quinn's mansion had been nerve wrecking, she watched as the more fancier cars with chauffeurs followed along side her dingy taxi all the way to Quinn's house. At least her dress was nice and she could go in with confidence that she was one of the best looking girls there and the best hacker.

Little things to help build up her confidence for the mission.

She couldn't help but think that Natasha and Maria would be scolding her for being nervous, yelling at her to not be, that they have given her enough training to take on a small undercover mission. That she was in their pack and their pack don't fail at this sort of thing.

" _No, I think I would be saying how you are really brave for doing this mission with the little training that you have received, even if it was from me, it's only been two weeks worth of combat and slight undercover training. That you don't have to worry if you fail at this mission, you can only learn from your mistake and keep improving._ " Natasha said, barging into her head.

Skye sighed, tilting her head to the window, still trying to work out how this whole thing worked and how to reply to Natasha. She was grateful for her words, she was not exactly sure if it helped her confidence or made her more nervous.

" _Just think, I'll hear it. I'm going to be keeping an eye on you in your mission. Helping you out when I can. I have every confidence that you can pull this off yourself, but I'm here just in case any unforeseen circumstances happen._ " Natasha replied

Well, she supposed that made things much easier, for communication and for the mission. Plus it did fill her with confidence. Natasha believed in her that she could handle it, and if not, Natasha would help her out. Using that, Skye managed to pull herself together to be the best undercover Skye she could be.

With that, Skye left the taxi, and started walking into the party. She smiled and mingled with the guest, listening attentively as both Natasha and hear team spoke to her, telling her information about each person she talked to. Skye smirked to herself, she was great at this whole mingling and gathering information, which led her straight to Ian Quinn himself.

She used her usual sweet and innocent smile as she slid easily into the group that Quinn was talking to. Quinn was talking about internet security, probably trying to reassure his clients that whatever he was up to was secure for them to dispatch information for him over it.

That's when she decided to be smart.

"I'd hate to interrupt, but that sounds like the most easiest system to break into for any experienced hacker. Heck, even an amateur hacker could probably access your systems." Skye drawled, slowing the group to a halt with her words as Quinn turned to face her.

"And who would you be?" he questioned

"Skye, hacker for the Rising Tide." she introduced, holding her hand out, a confident smile on her face as she regarded him.

Quinn's face light up with delight, ah so he did remember her and how she got her invitation "you're Skye! It's a pleasure to meet you, although I do have to say, I did not imagine you like this. I guess you are full of surprises." He said gleefully.

' _Skye, what are you doing? Be careful.'_ Natasha thought to her, her concern floating through the bond they shared.

' _Trust me._ ' Skye thought back, slowly pushing her to the back of her head for the time being.

"I generally surprise most people. They don't expect me to look this young, or gorgeous, if I am honest." She threw in, hopefully with a little bit of flirtation. "If you'd like, we can go inside before this party start and I can test your systems. From what you've described, it would only take ten minutes or so for me to hack it." She added teasingly, watching as Quinn's clients looked between the two and started murmuring softly, doubt filling their mind.

Quinn's face twitched, as though he was fighting to keep a scowl off of his face. "I can assure you all that my systems are one of the most secure systems in the world. You have nothing to fear." he soothed his clients.

Skye grinned, well that would be easy to exploit. "Well, Mr. Quinn, if you think it is safe then why don't you let me have a go at it? Your...friends, can keep tabs on the sight and if I'm not in in ten minutes or less, we can deem your site safe." Skye challenged, hoping that he would take the bait and lead her into the house and straight to a good access point.

"I like that idea, Mr. Quinn, like you said, it's the most secure system in the world, so surely you wouldn't mind demonstrating that to us the now. You seemed confident in the girls abilities as a hacker to invite her to this. So let her see if she can hack it." an old man said, looking rebelliously into Quinn's eyes.

Quinn quietly regarded everyone before nodding. "Alright, in twenty minutes, if this hacker has not made a change to my site, you will know it is secure."

"There we go, good boy. We'll be seeing you in about half an hour then, Quinn. I look forward to the same old website and your speech today." The same old man said, grinning at Quinn as he and the rest of the group left.

Quinn turned and glared at Skye and grabbed her by her elbow and dragged her into he his mini mansion. Skye tried to stop the rising panic as he dragged her, trying to convince herself that this was all part of the plan. She needed to get in the house to find an access point to find Franklin. Fitz had said that the best place for an access point would no doubt be in his office, and well, if Skye could pull this off, she will be in his office soon.

As soon as they were in the house, Quinn spun her around and slammed her into the wall. His forearm pressed harshly against her throat.

"Who are you and what do you want?" He hissed at her

Skye pushed down the urge to scream, rasping out "Freedom."

Clearly her answered took Quinn by surprise as his eyes widened and loosened his arm against her throat. She took advantage of his momentary distraction and manoeuvred out of his gip, grabbing the pen and paper that was next to her and quickly scribbled;

"Shield is listening."

Quinn raised an eyebrow at her and she pulled out her earpiece and dropped it in a glass of water.

"They could watch me from the outside, but inside I'm safe. Sorry I had to embarrass you in front of your clients but I needed a way in here without them suspecting what I was doing. They are monitoring my every move. They sent me in here because they can't operate in Malta." She quickly explained, letting a little bit of the truth out to solidify her lie. Just like Natasha told her.

"Let's go to my office." Quinn said after a moment of silence, leading her to his office without any hassle.

This was too easy, surely it was a set up, but she just had to keep believing that Quinn believed her and was leading her to an access point in whilst he thought he was freeing her.

"Shield have a nasty habit of bringing in the best hackers and using every dirty trick in the book to keep them with them. You should consider yourself lucky that you got this opportunity to escape. You know that they will most likely kill you next time they see you." Quinn said, as he opened up his office doors.

It revealed a large open space filled with some light software and heavy muscle. Skye eyed up the security guards with caution. There was at least five of them but Skye hasn't proven her abilities in the field yet so she wasn't sure if her training was any use.

' _Keep calm, you're doing great. Your plan is brilliant, you have a good instinct for this, just keep calm._ ' Natasha instructed calmly, but Skye could still tell that she was tense. She could tell that everyone in the pack was tense now. It was like a thousand nerves in a distant part of her brain were standing over the edge, occasionally a few would wobble before stabilising, and that was the most nerve wrecking part of this mission.

"So you want your freedom, huh? Well, freedom comes at a high cost. You'll need to get me information on Shield." Quinn said, turning his back to Skye, giving her the opportunity to pull out the make up scanner for the access point and fighting to keep the smile off her face as it lit up green. She closed it and leaned casually against chest drawers, placing it subtly down and praying that it would blend in with all the stuff that Quinn already had there.

"Freedom comes at a high cost, imprisonment comes at high cost. Everything comes at a high cost, Quinn. It's just the matter of the price and you're willingness to commit." Skye shrugged, walking around the room, scanning for exit points. So far her best bet was just jumping from the balcony. She could hear the small gentle waves that the pool was making, letting her know she had a soft landing which would prevent her having to explain about landing on concrete and not having much injuries.

"Well, Skye, how far are you prepared to go to get your freedom?" Quinn questioned, coming face to face with her. She could see that the guards were tensing and their heart rate rising. One was even getting a boner. O-kay then.

Well at least she didn't have to pretend that Quinn believed her, clearly he realised this was a set up, or that she was about to try and scam him out of something. Hopefully the latter.

"What's your price." Skye said bluntly "I'm not hear to play games Quinn, you know who I am, you know what I am capable of. Do you not think I have some loyal friends in the Rising Tide who let me know when a multi-billionaire comes snooping around?"

All of Quinn's false pretences fell as he regarded cooly. "Despite all the warnings, I still under estimated you. You see, you are...how to put this, terrifying to people like me. You are a hacker and you have nothing to lose. Literally nothing. It's quite unusual, most of you hackers are secret rich kids or you have some family members or close friends that they care about. Something that people like me can exploit to ensure loyalty. So, I guess what I'm trying to say Skye, is I'm going to make you need something that I have to ensure loyalty to me, and that is my price and like you said, you are willing to pay for it." Quinn explained and turned to her, the sound of a gun clicking as he pointed it at her.

Skye sucked in a breath as she looked down the barrel of the gun. _Don't panic, don't panic. You have enhanced healing. It will only hurt for a day or two._

 _'Skye, deep breaths. You can handle this. Stall him, we don't have access yet to put down the shields. He seems like the type of guy to talk about his masterplan. Keep stalling, as soon as you try to flee, he will realise this is a set up.'_ Natasha warned, she managed to keep her voice calm and her emotions in check.

May and the others were not having such luck.

It was like the whole pack was in her head, everyone yelling and throwing out suggestions.

' _Everyone shut up! You're freaking her out, she needs to focus. Everyone get out_ ' Natasha commanded and then there was silence as Skye continued to stare down at the gun in shock.

"You seem shocked." Quinn said, a hint of amusement in his tone, "this wouldn't have been so hard to grant your...freedom, if you were easy to manipulate. God knows Shield has many baby agents, that are easy enough to influence. They are so ambitious, always wanting to show me what they can build." he scoffed.

"What...How is you shooting me going to make me need you?" Skye questioned, trying to stay calm.

"Well, you see Skye, it's quite easy. This is a one of a kind gun and make it very difficult to repair. It spreads through your body-"

He pulled the trigger as Skye jumped out the way. The bullet entered her hip and a searing pain went through. Skye landed on the floor with a cry of pain, not even bothering to hold back the tears, or hold back how much pain she was in. She curled around her wound as Quinn stood over her.

"Like so, making it very difficult to pull out the bullet fragments. It's silver mixed with a components the repeals the magnets used to pull bullets out. Which means handing picking half melted silver inside your flesh, prevent the wound from closing which leads to a lot of complications, and even death. So Skye, what does it feel like to be _free_?" Quinn said, pushing the gun under her chin, forcing her head up to make eye contact. He smirked at her.

"Thats a good gi-" Skye struck him mid sentence, relying on all the knowledge that Maria and Natasha passed onto her on how to keep fighting even though you are in pain. How to keep fighting for your life. She pushed herself onto her feet, pushed away the pain and struggled to the balcony.

"I wish you hadn't done that Skye, and here I thought you were going to be such a good girl for me. I guess are you going to go now, my little Skye?" Quinn said, almost cooing.

Skye felt disgusted. She whimpered and struck out once more and jumped from the balcony. How? She's sure Simmons will probably tell her when she's chewing her out on the plane but for now, she had to focus on pulling herself out and running to the pickup point.

Never in her life had she wanted to just give up and let someone win their sick game.

' _Don't give up._ '

That was a new voice, but she listened to it.

' _That's it. Keep going. Push through the pain._ '

She's not that far from her pick up point, she can smell the bus. She can smell May.

' _Just follow the scent. Follow it home. You're almost there_.'

The women had a lovely voice. Skye was still trying to figure it out who it was. She can rule out Natasha, Melinda, Maria, Sharon. Obviously it wasn't Fitz or Clint. That left Izzy or Bobbi. That was hard to decipher since she's never met either of the women.

' _You'll know when you come back to base. Just get to the bus. Get to the bus Skye and we can help you. You need to get to the bus, baby._ '

Baby. She liked that. It was like a warm feeling spreading through her body, giving her the extra energy that she needed.

"SKYE!"

"May!" Skye called back desperately, stumbling closer to the women.

May came running towards her and quickly swept her up in her arms. Skye buried her head straight against Melinda's neck.

"May it hurts so much."

"I know sweetheart, I know." She mumbled back, holding her tighter. "Simmons."

Skye felt herself being place down on a table, it was cold, but it was nice against her burning hip. She clung to May when she tried to pull away. Skye was in pain and they were trying to leave her? Not acceptable. She needed the comfort, and after spending two weeks with the affectionate mother-hens, Skye wasn't going to be shy about what she wanted or needed when it came to comfort.

"Hey sweetheart, I need to let you go so Simmons can get started on that hip of yours. I'll be in the room for as long as Simmons lets me. She's very possessive of her lab, but she's going to take great care of you until we get back to base. " Melinda soothed, easing herself away from Skye. "There we go, good girl."

"Don't...don't call me that" Skye mumbled.

"Okay." May said easily, backing further and further away "I'll be here when you wake up Skye."

' _So will I. I'm so happy you made it baby. Rest, Simmons is great doctor and will dope you up on morphine you won't even remember the alphabet. We'll all be there when you wake up._ '

"Does Maria ever get pissy that the alphabet isn't called the betabet?" Skye mumbled, the drugs hitting her hard, letting everything fade into a foggy haze.

 **September 31** **st** **2014 1:20am**

 **SKYE**

Skye woke up to voice talking softly, the lights were dim and she felt very heavy, but safe. So that was a good sign. Her sense were slowly coming back to her, bit by bit. Which she was very grateful for her body doing that, or was it the meds? Either way she was happy. Skye grumbled softly and turned her head, feeling slightly uncomfortable.

"She's awake."

It was that women.

"She's been awake for five minutes Bobbi, she's only just getting her senses back due to the drugs." Ah, so it was drugs that were dulling her senses.

"I know, but she's _awake_ , Nat." Bobbi whined.

' _She sounded cute. Stupidly cute voice. Bet she's blonde._ ' Skye thought sleepily ' _I wonder what she looks like._ '

"She is blonde, kinda cute, not as cute as me or you." Natasha said teasingly "If you open your eyes sweetheart, you can see what she looks like."

"Looks don't count 'Tasha, it's personality." Skye mumbled back, turning herself as much as she could, opening her eyes to look at Natasha.

Natasha was smiling softly at "hey sweetheart, it was about time you decided to join us." She leaned forward easily and kissed her forehead softly

"Where's May...she promised." Skye whined, all thoughts of Bobbi left her as she thought back to the promise the women made her. She wasn't sure if she could handle Melinda breaking that promise.

"Right here sweetheart, you're sense are very dull right now, bet you couldn't even smell me." May soothed, her fingers running easily through Skye's hair from her back. Skye looked backwards and smiled happily at May.

"You kept it."She mumbled

"Of course. I don't break promises, Skye." Melinda promised, mimicking her own mate and kissing Skye softly on the forehead. "Now that you are awake, it's my turn for the food run. I'll be back in a while, but everyone else is here and I mean everyone, including Sharon."

"Sharon's here? Because I got shot?" Skye questioned.

Melinda nodded "because you got shot, everyone came here. None of us have ever encounter a bullet like before and it's having some different side effects that we've never thought of. I'll let Nat and Peggy explain sweetheart." Melinda finished with a silent goodbye as she left the room.

Skye stopped herself from whining, simply turning back to Natasha and a tall blonde that was standing in the dark.

"Sorry tall blonde and cute, I didn't see you standing there in the dark like a mockingbird." Skye said, pushing herself up (and causing Natasha to let out a strangled noise).

"Mockingbird? I think you mean a bat? Think the drugs are still in your system rockstar." The voice teased, coming out of the shadows and standing over her with an over confident smirk "And rockstar, I've been waiting a long time to hear those words."

"Sorry, the word mockingbird has been running around my head for months now... I guess I know why" Skye said quietly a small smile on her face as she glanced up drowsily at the women. "You're tall and am horizontal."

Bobbi exchanged a look with Natasha, who shrugged "Simmons gave her a higher dose than usual. I've got to admit, she is hilarious. Now, go on, be with your soulmate. I'm just supervising to make sure everything stays PG whilst Skye is recovering."

Bobbi rolled her eyes and crouched down besides Skye "This better?" she questioned.

Skye shook her head. No that was not better. She couldn't think of the words she needed, her brain felt foggy from the drugs, so she decided to repeat herself and hope Bobbi understands her. They are soulmates, surely they can do some weird communicating mental link to figure it out?

"You're tall and I'm horizontal." She repeated to Bobbi, Skye watched as the confusion rolled across Bobbi's face and sat there. Only momentarily.

"Oh! You mean you're lying down and I'm not? I can lie down if you want?" Bobbi questioned, trying to make sure she understood Skye.

"Watch out for her hip." Natasha called, watching them closely. "I know you don't need reminded, but Bobbi, just...go slow."

"I can hear you, you know." Skye called

"I know. Might as well give the shovel talk to Bobbi now and then give you the shovel talk later when you are better." Natasha replied lazily, curling up in her chair as she watched Bobbi carefully move around Skye to lie down beside her.

"Are you okay with being touch by me?" Bobbi asked softly, leaning close to Skye.

Skye nodded "Duh, pack and soulmate. Thats like all I want you to do – hold me. I'm sleepy" she replied, her tone holding a hint of a whine to it.

"Okay, just double checking because consent and all that. Is this okay?" Bobbi asked as she pulled herself close to Skye, an arm lightly draped across her sides, well away from her sore hip.

"Perfect." Skye mumbled, her eyes closing "is this okay for you? You don't have to do this cause I'm ill and bleedy."

"This is perfect." Bobbi replied, resting her head on the pillow and pulled Skye underneath her chin, enclosing the women with her whole body.

It wasn't long till Skye feel back asleep, wrapped in Bobbi's arm, feeling as the world has just aligned itself just for her.


	9. Chapter 9

A/N: He guys! I know it's been a while since I've updated but here is an extra long chapter for you guys! All the comments/feedback I've been getting recently is great! Makes me feel like an accomplished writer (read as validated) which is every writers dream, thanks guys!

 **February 6** **th** **2004**

 **Maria**

Maria wasn't off to a good week, first the anthrax attack, which turned out to be a hoax and wasted all of their time, honestly, how did they get such bad intel? The failed mission meant it went into a pile where intel was the source of the failure, and once that pile has hit a certain number within one month, an investigation had to be launch to ensure that the bad intel was intentional. Which, of course, meant that Maria was the one to launch an investigation into all failed missions in the past month due to bad intel and source the problem.

That meant long hours in her office or dealing with blubbering agents and a shit ton of coffee. She was not going to lie, she was pretty grumpy looking through all this intel, it was coming from all different agents of different levels, specialities and background. There seemed to be no connection between any of them. However, she was only two days into her investigation and Fury had given her two weeks to find a connection or they would pass it off as a coincidence. It most likely was a coincidence but Fury liked to be thorough and make sure there was no leaks within S.H.I.E.L.D.

Maria sighed as she put the last of the files for tonight in her secure draw and gaze in annoyance at the large pile that would be waiting for her tomorrow. She wished that she could bring other agents in on this case, but to make sure there was no tampering, only Maria was allowed to do it.

Maria stretched and decided to make her way down the others, tonight they would finally be shifting for the first time. She was looking forward to it, although she (and the other betas) had to work on their modesty. Their clothes tended to rip into shreds whenever they shifted so they either had to go through a ton of clothes or they get used to being naked around each other.

The door to the elevator slide open as she stepped inside, firing off a quick text to Natasha saying that she was on her way down. Maria watched through the glass elevator as it moved, staring at each each floor with developing projects. Fury was currently expanding an area to accommodate a large fleet of Helicarries, their newly developed airships which have replaced their mobile command centres. Whilst they were luxuries, they could only accommodate a handful of agents and was a nightmare when they had a large scale operation. It involved a lot of planes landing on top of planes, something made Maria very nervous when she was heading her own mobile command. Plus the Helicarries could stay in the air for weeks compared to the Boeing – c17, even when modified, the longest it lasted in the air was 3 and a half days before it needed refuelling.

Fury has big plans for the Helicarries, first stage of testing is seeing how effective they are for both time and money, the next stage would be to mass produce them and then if they continued to be beneficial to S.H.I.E.L.D they were going to super size them. Fury was in the talks of getting her her own Helicarrier, she would be in charge of everything and would not need to consult Fury on much (he was apparently going to give her very set guidelines on when to consult him). It would be bliss, the only problem is how would it effect the pack dynamics? With one member gone, could they all still function as usual? It was definitely something that they would have to test at some point.

"Stuck in a daydream, Maria?" Natasha teased, bringing Maria back to the present.

"Thinking about the day I get my own Helicarrier and leave you in the dust." She joked, sliding her arm through Natasha's as she led them to the others, "by the way, have you met Melinda May yet?"

"No, not yet, Peggy doesn't want us meeting them until we are ready to turn them." Natasha explained, slowly walking, savouring her small talks with Maria.

"Really? Is she still trying to push back their turn date? I don't know, I feel like we should give them more time to adjust to the change that they will be going through." Maria questioned, turning her head to look at Natasha.

"Or, the reason Peggy makes us wait is because after the change with little notice they are going to be confused, scared and or insecure, meaning that they will be relying on me or you." Natasha answered.

"Ah, a bit manipulative, I try not to manipulate my agents. I do think it would not be the best to manipulate May, she could probably sense that from ten miles away." Maria said

"You've got some worshipping going on, why does May mean so much to you?" Natasha asked, not really knowing much about Maria's past, the two of them enjoyed their easy go relationship that they had, of course Maria knew nearly everything about Natasha's, probably a bit more than her, due to the file she had to make so that S.H.I.E.L.D could bring her in. Natasha needed to get more knowledge on Maria, she couldn't let the women have that leverage over her.

"May helped bring me into SHIELD. After the army basically fired my ass for kissing a girl on a drunken night out, I feel into a depression, you could say. Spent a lot of my time drinking, cliché I know but it really seemed like it helped, at first it made me elated, then it felt like I couldn't function without it. One night I got into a fight in typical drunk Maria style, unfortunately for me, it was where a bunch of S.H.I.E.L.D agents were having a night out.

Their attitudes pissed me and some of them were bothering women who told them to leave them alone several times but didn't, so of course I stood in a tried to beat the crap out of them, did pretty well knocked four out of six of them to their arses then I got a glass bottle to my head. It was pretty foggy after that but I do know that May stepped in, beat the last two to a pulp and took me home.

I woke up the next morning and she was sitting there like she owned the place, gave me a long and just flung my files down on the table and a SHIELD contract, said the only way I was going to get a job was to clean up my act. Stop the drinking, the vigilantly bar fights and get healthy. It was a bitch to do, took me a couple months, got set back a few times, but May was there for the entire time, and eventually Coulson was as well. They trained me as best as they could." Maria told Natasha nonchalantly, as if telling a funny joke they heard in the passing.

Natasha paused and stared at Maria for moment. She always imagined the women to have good life, good home life despite her mother dying in child birth, grew up in a big house, went to some great private schools and got into SHIELD by impressing superiors at the annual undercover stake out in the army to look for potential recruits.

"You know Natasha, if you wanted to know more about my life, all you have to do is ask." Maria said, walking backwards and winked at her as she opened the door to the others.

"Or I could just command you." Natasha grumbled, annoyed that Maria caught on to what she was wanting.

"But where's the fun in that?" Maria said, laughing as she flopped onto the couch.

"You're so graceful." Natasha snarked, not really bother to come up with a comeback and shoved Maria's legs off of the couch to make room for herself.

Maria rolled her eyes at Natasha, simply tilting her head backwards, "so are we doing this or what?"

"Well it would be a waste of our time and money if we weren't" William said, lounging as well on another couch. The betas were trying to seem calm and collected, but the jiggling legs and fidgeting to fingers gave away their nerves.

"Well maybe you should get up and stretch, get ready for the shift, we go at your pace." Toby said, looking around at them, clearly bored and wanted to get this over with already.

"Get naked as well, unless you want to rip your clothes." Victoria added with a smirk.

"I'll rip my clothes, thanks." The betas deadpanned together, casting each other a weird look at their synced talking.

"You'll have to get used to being naked eventually, it's not like we have the ability to shift our clothes as well." Peggy said with a roll of her eyes, the alphas and herself had gotten used to nudity a long time ago. She would have thought Maria would be used to it by now by the sheer fact she was constantly watching over them when they first changed.

"Eventually." Maria agreed.

"But not today." Kara finished.

Natasha snorted, but didn't comment, instead she stood up and pulled Maria with her, "c'mon, lets get this over with you wimp."

"I'm not a wimp." Maria snapped automatically, scowling at the alpha.

"Really? If you weren't a wimp, you'd have shifted long before we had to schedule a night. It's kind of pathetic really, that the deputy director has to wait for someone lower in the ranks to make up a schedule for her and hold her hand through this." Natasha sneered, pushing Maria to shift. They were trialling different ways for the first transformation, seeing which one would be the most effective and quick way for the first transformation. Poor Maria got saddled with shifting through anger. Kara got loving cuddles from Victoria. William was getting positive support from Toby and James and Jayden were doing a talk through of the shifting, to visualise the wolf. It would be interesting to see which one shifted the easiest.

The others were starting to do their own thing to encourage the beta's to shift whilst Peggy was keeping a watchful eye on the situation.

"I know what you're trying to do, and it's not going to work." Maria said threateningly, her eyes ablaze.

Natasha scoffed, "you know what I'm doing yet you're letting it get to you, despite what you said, you know you're letting yourself get angry. Like I said, pathetic. What's worse? Not being able to go through a transformation without help or not being able to defend people because you were drunk off your ass cause you got fired? Huh, which is it Maria?" Natasha snapped, shoving the shaking Maria.

It seemed to do the trick as Maria burst forward in a fit of anger, leaping as her body seemed to combust, clothes shredding everywhere. Natasha took a step backwards, letting her body hit the floor as the wolf hit her. She let Maria pin her for a second before quickly flipping them and shoved Maria against the floor, grabbing her by the scruff of her neck. It was easy due to the fact that she was only the size of a German Shepard, if she had done this when fully grown, it might have been a bit of a challenge.

She stared down at the wolf struggling beneath her as she straddled Maria's back, using only enough weight to keep her pinned. She ran her eye slowly over the others, they had already shifted and were watching them were curiosity.

"So." Natasha started "Anger seems to be the worst way to shift?"

"Agreed. James shifted the fastest and seemingly painlessly." Peggy said, eyes flickering to James with pride, and everyone watched as his tail picked up speed as the off-handed praise. "Next would be Kara, then Will and last Maria. Who's still fighting you, Natasha." Peggy finished.

"So she is." Natasha replied casually, applied more pressure to the grip she had on Maria's neck and shoved her further down. "Down girl, down." Natasha laughed, taking a little bit too much amusement out of it, unfortunately it seemed to make Maria a lot more angrier. "So dramatic." she mumbled.

Natasha gently let go of Maria's neck, but kept her thighs firmly against Maria's side and slowly ran her fingers through the fur, soothing the anger out of the wolf, gently rubbing over the shoulder blades. The tension and anger seemingly left her body and she lay compliantly against the ground, her tail slowly moving from side to side, her ears flat against her head. A small whine escaped Maria.

Natasha slowly got off the women, sitting by her side, still stroking her fur. Maria turned her body, sprawling on her side. Her nose sniffing at her fingers, and nipped at them lightly, whining lightly. A small apology. Natasha smiled at that, it was good to know that Maria would submit easily. It would make both their lives easier.

She looked at Maria and all of her identifiable marks, she was mainly a black wolf, except her paws, it looked like she had white socks on, she also had a brown patch on her ribs, right where her soul mark would be. Maria had bright yellow eyes, something that gave away the fact she was not simply a large dog.

"Well that went well." Natasha commented cheerfully, grinning up at Peggy who rolled her eyes in response but sprung from her chair, shedding her clothes and shifted easily. She began walking amongst the beta's, sniffing at them, gaining their scents and in general seemed to be playing with them as they got used to this form. Maria had left her side as soon as Peggy moved, moving straight to the women, her tail wagging a mile a minute as she tried to get the other wolf's attention. It was cute.

Natasha didn't dwell on it much longer as she rolled her shoulders and stripped herself of her own clothes and shifted, walking over to Maria and bumped against her lightly, mindful of her own size. She only stayed with Maria for a few minutes before she settled down with the other alphas, her own copper coloured fur standing out against the others. They lay there, contently lying on each other as the watched the beta's figure out their new forms.

Eventually the new wolves tired themselves out and were pushing and pulling Peggy with their teeth and nose, guiding her to where the other alpha's lay, and all of them easily flopped down, panting. Maria wiggled her way up to Natasha, snuffling her way under Natasha's arms, legs? Paws? Whatever, all Maria knew was that she was very comfortable and exhausted. The shift had been painful, but had ignored it at the time due to her anger.

Maria sighed and nuzzled deeper, enjoying the feeling of being surround by soft fur and warmth. It reminded her of the best parts of her childhood, but she wasn't going to follow that train thought, mainly because Natasha was in her head. If Natasha wanted to know more about her past, she had to ask. It was a great thing to annoyed her with.

' _You are, by far, the cruelest person I have ever met._ ' Natasha whined at her, her paw landing heavily on Maria.

' _No, you are._ ' Maria countered

' _You are._ '

' _No, you are._ '

' _Oh shut up._ ' Peggy groaned, lifting her head to look at the two (they tried to look at her as innocently as possible) ' _You're both worse than Sharon and Tony when they start arguing._ '

' _Sharon?_ ' Maria asked, tilting her head. Everyone knew that Peggy had a hand in Tony Stark's upbringing and that there were other children that Peggy helped raised but they had never heard much about them. Peggy liked to keep her family anonymous, apparently.

' _My niece. She's like my daughter really, her parent's weren't that supportive of the profession she wanted to go in and tried everything they could to discourage her. I still can't believe that my own brother would treat his daughter like that._ ' Peggy thought to them.

' _Let me guess, she wanted to go into the same profession as her amazing aunt?_ ' Natasha teased.

' _Yes, and she got into my profession as well, same organisation._ ' Peggy said, leaving it simply at that, knowing Maria would figure it out in a second.

' _Sharon_...' Maria mused, running every known SHIELD agent with that name through her head, working out variables and slowly crossing them out. Carter, surprisingly enough, was started to be a common name in SHIELD and there were at least three Sharon Carter's, but that's even if the women used her aunt's last name. It took her a few minutes, but she was positive she has the right agent. ' _Agent 13?_ ' she questioned.

Peggy smiled, well, figuratively, it was hard to smile in the wolf form. ' _Correct. She has an amusing soul mark, something about butter._ '

' _Huh, so does mine, guess that's something we can bond over if Fury decides to have her join this operation._ ' Maria thought, yawing, finally letting the exhaustion take over. The thoughts of her and Sharon Carter having similar soul marks totally went over her head.

' _Is anyone going to point out the obvious?_ ' Jayden questioned.

' _Let them figure it out themselves._ ' Peggy said.

' _What's the bet Maria wont notice till mini Carter joins us._ ' Toby laughed.

' _Who says she'll be joining us?_ ' Victoria questioned.

' _Oh please, like Fury wouldn't have mini Carter join._ ' Natasha snorted.

Peggy groaned at them, she wasn't opposed to Sharon joining them, in fact, she wished Fury would tell her know, that way she didn't have to lie to her. She wouldn't have to keep up the pretence that she was rotting away in a care home with early stage dementia. She wished there was a way to tell Tony as well, but Fury seems against the idea, she's still arguing with him about that, Tony needed guidence in his life, especially when it came to his company. She had been seeing recently all the things he had been getting up to and could tell it wouldn't be long till he hit a wall.

Fury promised her that they were keeping a close eye on Tony, but something told Peggy it wasn't for the reason she thought, so she made him promise that he would do his best to keep Tony out of trouble. He said he would try. It did not fill her with much confidence, but these were thoughts for another day, guilt for another day as she focused on those around her, watching he silently, offering support. Peggy huffed at them and bumped her head against the closest alpha, James, and lay back down, forcing them to follow her. Couldn't they tell that it was clearly nap time?

Natasha chuckled in their ears as she joined them in a nap. What a great time to be a wolf.

 **September 31** **st** **2014 12:05pm**

Skye

Skye woke up in a comfortable state, pressing back into another person. Her first instinct was that it was Natasha that was sleeping beside her, a normal occurrence for the past two weeks. She automatically pushed back into the body with a soft groan, not wanting to wake up. It wasn't until the body behind her spoke, that she realised that it was not Natasha;

"If you keep doing that, I'm going to rip your clothes off of you and have my filthy, filthy way with you."

Skye froze.

Bobbi. Flirting. Bed. Sharing? What?

Oh.

How could Skye forget she met her soulmate, although if she were honest with herself, she doesn't remember much past being...being shot. ' _Clearly, my memory is not what is used to be,'_ Skye thought sarcastically to herself.

"Morning you two, about time you both woke up." Natasha said, gathering the attention of the two women lying on the bed. Skye pushed herself up, to only hiss in pain.

Bobbi quickly got her arm around Skye and gently moved her into an upright position, her eyes watching carefully watching for any signs of pain. "Are you okay?" She murmured, slowly letting her fingers drift over Skye's arm.

Skye smiled in response "Yeah, I'm good, I just forgot I got shot that's all. I thought we had super fast healing? Why is this still here?" she questioned, looking between the two women.

"Easily enough explained, it's something that we always forget to tell you." Natasha said, looking sheepish.

"We? I think you mean you, Natasha." A posh sounding British voice said from the doorway. "That's twice now you've forgotten to mention that. I think we need to have a discussion."

Natasha groaned quietly from where she sat, a small pout but otherwise seemed accept the slight reprimand without much hassle. "Skye, meet Peggy, head alpha. Peggy meet Skye, our cutest addition."

"You're gushing again, Natasha." Peggy said with a fond roll of her eyes as she stepped further into the room, focusing on Skye.

"It's nice to finally meet you Skye, it's not often I'm out on missions that last more than two days. Normally I would meet you on your first day, I'm terribly sorry." Peggy said, sitting down on the edge of the bed, "Although, I do hear congratulations are in order, you said our lovely Bobbi's words."

Skye blushed, looking down, smiling light when she felt Bobbi's hand squeeze her's tightly. "Thank you." Skye replied, unsure of how to go with Peggy.

Peggy seemed to literally hold this air of royalty, from the accent, to the way she spoke to the way she held herself. Skye know, that Peggy was simply a product from her era that stood out in today's society, making her seem like high class. More so in front of Skye, who only a few weeks ago was living in a van. Skye had met women like Peggy before. It wasn't a pleasant experience, but it wasn't exactly the worst that she had experienced. Most women like Peggy who took in foster children always went for the skinniest, straggliest looking kids, but, at least they always went for the older children. For the harder cases. It made them look good amongst their high society, taking in this poor children and loving them like their own, showering them in love , affection and materials.

Except it was just materials, but like she said, it wasn't the worst but not the best. Skye got three square meals a day plus snacks. She got a whole new wardrobe, new shoes and most importantly to a 15 year old, a new smart phone.

She lost most of it when she was put back in the orphanage, but she kept the phone close to her and as a vindictive move, swiped all the lose cash that she could have, promising to herself to put it towards her 'Operation: Get the Fuck out of Here' fund. Turned out it was more than enough cash to buy her a her van and some essentials for living on the road.

"Skye?" Peggy asked softly, looking at her with some concern.

"Hm? Oh, sorry, just...you know, you get shot, you get lost in your head," Skye said, forcing a fake laugh. She really didn't want to divulge into her past, sometimes the memories just take her by surprise and she gets lost in them.

Peggy simply place her hand on her shoulder with a supportive squeeze, thanks to the bond, she could understand that Skye was not wanting to talk about it and decided not to push it. It would be something they could discuss at a later date.

"Of course dear, well, let's explain why you are not healing. It's quite simple, and slightly hilarious. The one part of werewolf folk lore that we somehow managed to keep is that silver can have a deadly effect on us. Imagine it as an allergy to sliver that you've spontaneous developed. Once it's out of your system, you can heal, but sometimes there might be some damage left behind. Thankfully it appears that you wont have any lasting damage but it might take a few days for your wound to heal up, and that just boils down to the bullet that was used. Does all that make sense for you?" Peggy explained clearly.

"Yeah, easy enough, stay the fuck away from silver." Skye replied cheekily.

Peggy smiled easily at her, it was easy to see how everyone got so easily attached to the girl. She would make an excellent addition to her pack , "Exactly. Natasha, we are having a meeting tonight at 4:30pm, then we are going to sit down and have a nice pack dinner. So don't stir any shit, do you understand?" Peggy prompted.

Natasha mocked saluted Peggy with a grin, "ma'am yes, ma'am!" and promptly received a smack across the head from Peggy.

"Smart ass. I expect everyone to be there, Natalia." Peggy said as she left the room, only pausing to face Skye, "and I was lovely to finally meet you Skye, I'll see you later, darling." and with that she left, presumably to go inform everyone else about the meeting.

"Well that was fun, I got a smack across the head and Skye get's called darling. I see how it is, apparently you are the new favourite." Natasha jokingly huffed "So Bobbi, are you reporting your mission in this meeting as well? From what I saw it seemed to tie in slightly with what is going on." She questioned.

Bobbi sat up straighter with a sigh "yeah, my mission was a success...well, in the eyes of Fury. He doesn't care about the number of acceptable causalities. It's not something I'm looking forward to doing again, but from what I could tell, it was seemingly a meeting between representatives to pass on some important information. I think it was coming from Quinn Inc. I couldn't make out what was going on, there was far too much noise there, almost like it was on purpose. Plus the guards were aware of us as wolves and were using silver bullets." Bobbi finished with a frown, her arms unconsciously tightening around Skye's.

Natasha mimicked the frown "seems like Quinn is becoming a problem. First he shoots Skye with the weird gun and now he apparently knows about us and is spreading the information?"

"Well, you guys never managed to find the leak from when Maria was attacked and then you had a problem with all those murders. Plus the silver bullets slowly making a comeback. Quinn has a lot of sway but he's only obtained that in the last few years...it could all be tied in together." Bobbi theorised, both women looked concerned as they contemplated the situation.

"Wait, Maria was attacked? When? What leak?" Skye questioned

"It's a story for another time, Skye." Natasha dismissed. "I need to talk to Melinda. Bobbi, Jemma says to start getting Skye up and moving, that the healing should be at the level of where a normal person would start physically therapy. Take her to Sharon's room." Natasha easily commanded as she left the room, clearly distracted.

"I've never seen Natasha like that before." Skye said quietly, moving to get herself out the bed. She hated being confined to hospital beds.

"It's a difficult topic for her, it's a difficult topic for the alpha's and beta's. What happened effected them the most, especially Maria and Natasha. Now come on, lets take this slow and steady. This is the best part of recovery. You're hands are going to be all over me." Bobbi teased as she moved to Skye's side and helped her out the bed.

The two of them continued their slow journey to Sharon's and Maria's room, talking about random stuff before Bobbi decided to fill Skye in more about the pack and their habits.

"So, Maria and Sharon actually only ever use their room for two things when they are here; one, playing videos games since they've just hoarded them over the years and two, having sex in when they are too many people in 'Tasha's and Mel's room." Bobbi explained cheerfully.

Skye laughed loudly "that's hilarious! Why do they prefer May's and Natasha's room so much? Like I get the whole fact that it seems so comforting and the bed is huge, but, their room is just as awesome? Like I would have to shared custody of their rooms."

"We could make your room as cool as theirs. Get the nice long bed and video games in, if you want?" Bobbi said, swinging their arms lightly.

"Wait, my room?" Skye asked, confused.

"Yep. Everyone gets their own room unless they chose to share a room with their mate. Everyone has to have their own space." Bobbi answered, pulling them into Sharon's room, smiling when she realised the women was inside. "We can talk about that later, I think one of your three mother-hens are inside."

"I'll have you know, I only have two mother-hens and one awesome older, wiser pack mate." Skye replied jokingly.

Bobbi rolled her eyes and opened the door "only two mother-hens she says." she muttered to herself "has no clue how many shovel talks I'm going to get because you are so darn cute."

"You guys could knock you know!" Maria called, sitting up from where she lay on the bed, pulling her clothes back on.

"Since when did you care about nudity, Maria? Even when we shared our dorms, you would just strut about naked." Bobbi laughed, making her way over to the bed and hugged Maria and Sharon. "It's good to see both of you in the same room, it's been like five months, has it not?"

"Well, we were together for two days about a week and a half ago, but yes previously it had been five months since we last saw each other." Sharon said and wrapped herself around Maria and patted the space next to her. "So, you are kinda interrupting our alone time, but anything for our little pup who was shot. Anything." Sharon finished in a suggestive tone, wiggling her eyebrows at Skye.

Skye grinned at her friend, possibly one of her more favourite members of the pack, but she was not about to admit that anytime soon (mainly because she hasn't met everyone in the pack and gotten to know them like she is doing with Sharon and Maria)

"I'm sure I'll take you up on the offer when I'm not longer being stabbed by the lingering pain of silver." Skye teased

"God you're dramatic. I get why Natasha loves you now." Bobbi said, rolling her eyes.

"See! Even Bobbi thinks Natasha is dramatic, and Skye! It's like two peas in a pod with them." Maria exclaimed, turning her head to face Sharon, a smile on her face.

Sharon scoffed "Maria, babe, my soul, the soul to my mate... no one is dramatic as you." and she kissed the top of Maria's head, causing her to pout.

"I'm not dramatic" she muttered to herself, huffing every so softly. Sharon laughed and tightened her grip on Maria, sliding her hands under her top.

"You are, but it's cute." Sharon teased.

"So how come Skye got the invitation to fuck, but I didn't? Just cause she got shot and is incapable of sex, doesn't mean I'm not! I haven't had sex in like, a month. A whole month!" Bobbi whined jokingly, Bobbi never really had sex with Maria or Sharon, she preferred Clint, or Natasha. Everyone preferred Natasha.

Skye was glad the others had told her that the pack are very open with each other and sexually open to one another, otherwise Skye might have reacted badly to hearing that her soulmate wanted to fuck someone else. Now that she was prepared for it, the idea of Bobbi and Sharon having sex was rather hot and it was going to take more than a cold shower to get it out of her head.

Damn it.

Maria laughed "Skye you're airing your thoughts loudly. Though, to be fair, the first time I discovered the two of them had been having sex, it took three weeks of solid cold showers before I decided that I wanted to join in. So I'll save you the cold showers, just join us. It's great fun."

Skye just grinned in response "sounds like it will be a fun day for all of us when that day happens."

Bobbi hummed in agreement and pulled Skye gently to lie down between her and Sharon and nestle against her back. Skye pushed back against the women and pulled Bobbi's arm over her waist and sighed happily. This was good, this was nice. She just met Bobbi, but it was the same instantaneous bond that she had with Maria and Sharon, except it seemed to be intensified by a million. It was like as soon as she said Bobbi's words, the two of them merged into one, their minds and emotions were just orbiting around each other, constantly aware of what the other was doing. Skye was pretty sure that Bobbi was toning the bond down, the other women had more experience with bonds and the ability to lower their intensity and she was grateful. It would be hard to deal with both the bonds from the pack and Bobbi. It would get confusing but this was she was able to easily differentiate between the two.

Skye closed her eyes, decided she was going to take a nap before the meeting later on today. She felt safe and content lying with three of her favourite people, all of them pressed tightly together.

Bobbi smoothed out her hair and kissed the side of her temple "I'll wake you up in time for the meeting, sweetheart."

September 31st 2014 4:30pm

Skye

Skye woke up to the sound of something crashing. She shot up in her bed and stared at the scene in front of her, it looked like something out of a comedy show.

"Uhhh... What...happened?" Skye quizzed, looking confused.

In front of Skye held, what she assumed, the entire pack. Natasha was on the back of some guy holding a bow, (she was just going to guess that was Clint) who had it notched at the glass collection (Sharon enjoyed marbled glass, it was really pretty to look at.) in Sharon and Maria's room. Sharon was on the floor, staring at a shattered glass marble, looking very upset and Maria was crouched beside her with a sympathetic hand on Sharon's shoulder whilst glaring at Clint, or was she glaring at Natasha? Probably Clint.

Melinda, Fitz and Izzy (the last member of the pack that she hasn't met yet) were standing to the side. May was looking on with annoyance at both Clint and Natasha whilst Fitz and Izzy seemed to be trying to hide their laughter by leaning into each other.

Of course Bobbi was still curled around her and rolled her eyes when Skye looked at her.

"Clint and Natasha were being idiots." Bobbi clarified, well not really, it still left Skye really confused.

"It's surprisingly a long story but in short, Clint said that he wanted to show off his new bow, but it didn't go well, and well, he smashed Sharon's favourite glass marble." she explained.

"Still doesn't explain why 'Tasha is on his back." Skye pointed out, looking back at Natasha, who was climbing off his back.

"Nat likes to distract Clint when he's taking his shots to throw him off balance." Bobbi replied with a shrug, as if this was the most natural thing in the world.

"Oh." Skye responded, keeping her opinion of that Natasha might have caused Sharon's favourite glass marble smashed.

Natasha hopped off of Clint's back and stood tall, addressing them as a whole "We've have a meeting in about 10 minutes that we should really head off to now, although Peggy did give us some leeway and said to wait until Skye was awake, which she now is and it was right on time for the meeting. Basic rules to go over, since last time a lot of you forgot, Maria, and the meeting ended in a disaster. We want this to go nice and calm, mainly because it's Skye's first meeting and we want to set a good example for our young. A run down of the rules; phone must always be on the table, minimal taunting, we are technically one giant pack so stop trying to get into fights, Sharon. Do not fling projectiles into people's hair and wait for them to notice, Clint, and obey me and above all, we are the best." Natasha finished, rather dramatically in Skye's opinion.

Sounded like the pack got into a lot of trouble at these meetings. That means it wont be boring, well, she hoped it wouldn't be boring. Meetings were not really her thing. Meetings for Skye meant sitting around as someone talked down you about something they knew nothing about. Hopefully these ones will be better than that.

"Yeah, question, everything about that is pretty self explanatory and sounds hilarious and I can not wait to go this meeting ,but what do you mean by we are the best?" Skye asked

"Simple, if we believe that we are the best, we come off as strong and united. It makes us less vulnerable to attacks from the other pack. We're always fighting for Peggy's favourite, it is a joke to us most of the time, but sometimes it get serious, like in meetings. In meetings Peggy has all of us, can compare us to each other in the same space." Natasha explained for her.

"Well that sounds fun." Skye said sarcastically and turned to face Bobbi again. Skye wasn't quite sure why she was looking to Bobbi for reassurance, maybe it was the fact that she had been sitting behind her, legs pressed lightly against her back and hand resting on her hips, a steady and strong presence throughout the explanation.

Bobbi shrugged again, a stupid smirk graced her face as she leaned down and place a soft kiss to her cheek and teasingly moved her lips to Skye's ears, making Skye shiver.

"It really can be, everyone get soooo possessive of what is theirs... people can't just seem to keep their hands to their selves... you might have to watch out..." Bobbi whispered teasingly and nipped Skye's ear lightly.

"Bobbi." Natasha snapped sharply "No time for half assed foreplay, we have a meeting to get to."

Bobbi rolled her eyes but obediently moved away from Skye to standing, "yeah, yeah, ruin my fun Nat. Let's go play happy families."

"We are a happy family." Maria reminded Bobbi with an eye roll as she and Sharon left the glass marbles to stand with the others.

"I meant with the other packs, because that would be so much fun." Bobbi commented sarcastically

Skye stood up from the bed, looking down at her clothes with a shrug; slightly wrinkled but they will do.

"Geeze, what crawled up your ass and died, Bobbi-boo?" Clint asked, mirth in his eyes as he knew exactly what was up.

Bobbi glared at him, a short and simple way to shut Clint up.

"Bobbi-boo? That's brilliant." Skye said, grinning at her soulmate.

"Look what you've done Clint, you've corrupted her and you've not even said anything to her." Bobbi groaned.

"Let's deal with relationship problems later, the meeting, let's go." Natasha said, hurrying them out the room.

Together as a pack, they walked through the winding maze towards the meeting room. Skye had given up hope at remembering the route after three left turns that Skye swears led them to the same corridor over and over. Now she was just listening to the light chatter the pack made.

Natasha and Maria seemed to be discussing the upcoming meeting and concerns that they were having within the pack and May was walking silently besides them, occasionally offering her own two cents. Fitz, Bobbi and Clint were talking about weapons and potential upgrades that Fitz could do for them before the conversation quickly steered to Fitz and Simmons' Night Night Gun and the potential to incorporate it in other weapons; such as Clint's arrows or his bow and Bobbi's batons. It was definitely an interesting conversation that Skye wanted to follow up with Fitz at a later date and the two of them (most likely three as Jemma would join) could bounce idea's off of each other. Lastly, Sharon and Izzy were talking quietly about an upcoming mission in regards to the Iliad that Izzy was about to go on. Skye wasn't sure what the Iliad was, but she assumed that if she needed to know, Sharon would let her know. Sharon always filled Skye in with the gossip.

It wasn't long till the conversation lulled to a stop as Natasha pushed open the door to the meeting room. It was giant room with dark metallic walls which were lined with white boards and sheets of paper. One wall seemed to hold a list of the pack members and another held multiple screens, which Skye assumed would be used to keep an eye on any mission they went on, or rather, this would be their mission control. She wondered who would stay behind and run the missions.

The pack seemed to sit down in designated seats, leaving Skye wondering where the hell she would sit as she stared awkwardly at the table that was already filled with people from the other packs.

"C'mon Skye, we've got the perfect seat for you, between me and Sharon." Bobbi muttered, gently taking a hold of her arm and guided her to the seat next to Sharon. Skye just nodded her compliance, her eyes darting to the others in the room again, not quiet sure of them. It felt like they were judging her.

Probably were.

She couldn't let that get to her as she tried to keep her head held high and meet the eyes of the others in the room cooly. She took her seat and placed her phone on the table with the others, just in front of them and in eye sight of everyone and waited patiently on what to do next.

' _You're doing great so far Skye, all you really need to do in this meeting is sit there and look pretty. So don't worry about anything, okay?_ ' Natasha thought to her from where she sat three seats up, sitting rather regally.

' _Sit here and look pretty is my middle name, 'Tasha._ ' Skye joked, turning to grin at her alpha.

Natasha just rolled her eyes fondly at her.

The door opened again, only to reveal Peggy Carter. She walked in with all the usual grace that you would expect from someone living in 40's. Skye stomach had dropped when she walked into the room, her heart seemed to speed up in fear and every instinct in her body told her to bow at this women's feet. To submit to her. It was strange feeling to have, when earlier on Peggy evoked no such feeling from Skye or anyone else in the room. Peggy had felt warm and nurturing earlier, now she felt powerful and dominant, well it was a given since Peggy was the head alpha, but still, this was something Skye had never experience before.

Skye slowly slid down in her chair as Peggy walked calmly to her designated chair at the "head" of the circle table, situated right in front of the screens. Peggy smiled at all of them, though it did little to ease the feeling within Skye, she then felt a hand of reassurance on her thigh and she turned to look at Sharon, she was smiling softly at her and squeezed her thigh in reassurance.

' _It's okay, it's totally normal to feel that way. Aunt Peggy does that to remind everyone in this room who exactly is in charge, but it's just Aunt Peggy. She's harmless._ ' Sharon soothed silently.

' _Most of the time._ ' Maria added on, mischief flooding through the pack bond, ' _She wasn't too kind when she found out we all banged her niece._ '

' _Maria!_ ' Sharon scowled, but it was too late, the whole pack was snickering internally, only allowing a smile to grace their faces. It did, however, make Skye feel better about the whole 'I want to lie at your feet a submit myself to you' thing she had going on.

"Is there something funny?" Peggy asked, leaning forward slightly and giving them the raise eyebrow that made Skye thing that Peggy knew exactly what was going on.

"Just Maria and Sharon having a little loves spat." Natasha replied with a grin, causing Maria and Sharon to send her dirty looks.

"You're a filthy liar Natasha Romanov," was all Peggy had to say on the situation before she moved right on to start the meeting. "Welcome everyone and thank you for all coming in on such short notice, we have several important things to discuss today. Everyone will have to start taking more precaution on their missions, the rise of silver weapons, especially bullets are making a comeback in the market, according to our statics and the fact that one of our own was shot by a billionaire, who claimed to have made the weapon himself; Ian Quinn."

Everyone in the room started muttering to themselves, most of them knew Ian Quinn, mainly from Tv appearances, his philanthropy and the occasional advancement in technologies. It begged the question as to why he started using silver bullets and why he was creating them.

"The bullet itself is seemingly normal, but once impacted in the skin, it will burst into pieces that seemed to be catapulted from the bullet and further into the body. The bullet is somehow anti-magnetic, which prevented an easy recovery. So each piece has to be manually removed, every tiny little bit, which is not easy when there is blood everywhere. It just makes it all that more painful and longer to recover from, although still shorted than the normal recovery speed of a normal human." Peggy explained carefully. "We have to prepare ourselves in case this bullet goes onto the market and becomes available to everyone, it will be a pain in our arses."

"It makes you curious though, why would Quinn make silver bullets or have any need for them? Do you think he somehow knows that there are enhanced S.H.I.E.L.D agents?" Victoria questioned, looking perplexed at the issue at hand.

Peggy and Maria shared a look, puzzling the rest. The two of them seemed to be stressed out by this idea but also as though they were aware of this situation long before it was brought to the packs attention.

"That would bring us the next point of the meeting. Someone does know we exist and it spreading it out amongst the criminal community." Maria replied heavily, sounding like she had been thinking this over in her head for a long time and was constantly coming up with no answer.

"What makes you think that?" Tobias enquired, looking between Maria and Peggy.

"Over the past few years there has been a surge in attempts to recreate the super soldier serum as well as an in crease in the use of silver weapons, being created and sold. All of this slowly started after we started going out on missions. Fury's debating about whether or not we should be leaving witnesses with the way things are going, because if we keep going like this we might cause more damage to be done to the regular agents."Maria answered.

"So what, we just kill any civilian that happened to be unfortunate enough to witness our missions? That's bullshit, Maria and you know it." Jayden snapped

Maria glowered at him, "you don't think I know that? Do you seriously think I just go along with whatever Fury thinks we should go with? We're hashing out ideas right now because we have no clue about what's going on and we're are going to do what is best by S.H.I.E.L.D and it's agents and the civilians. If it gets out that there are enhanced agents only affected by silver, they are going to create deadlier weapons just to hurt and kills us and it's going to affect the weapons that are readily available. It will cause more damage in the long term."

"How do we know people actually know, other than the increase in the super serum drug or the silver bullets? This could all just be a response to the increased presence of Iron Man and good old Captain America. Not to mention the ghost." Tobias countered.

"Careful how you speak of Cap, Toby, Peggy might just gut you if you insult him." Natasha teased, hoping to ease some of the tension that was building in the room. She was hoping for a pleasant meeting for Skye's first meeting but it seems that a fight is imminent.

Toby rolled his eyes. "I'm not an idiot, Natasha. I wouldn't insult the good ol' Cap in front of Pegs even if you paid me a million bucks. I'm just saying, where is the proof?"

"We have proof. I have proof." Bobbi injected, sitting up straighter as everyone looked at Bobbi. Bobbi glanced at Peggy, gaining her permission to share the story and with a short nod, she launched into it;

 _Bobbi sighed as she set the sniper down slowly her eyes glowed lightly in the dark as she observed the chaotic scene below her. She set the distraction as the mission planned and once their target fled the building, she'd shoot him. Plain and simply. Supposedly. She was only half heartedly listening to her coms, absently scratching at her arm, simply waiting for the key words to be said, her concentration for the mission constantly wavered. Bobbi understood that she was technically the only wolf available for this mission but on the other hand, Bobbi was pissed._

The pack had a new wolf and Bobbi had a strong connection to her, without even meeting her. She knew what it implied but she wanted so desperately to hear those words and not just keep assuming that the two of them were soulmates based on the connection they had, because Sharon and Maria were quickly bonding with the girl, becoming close.

It was bad already, Bobbi knew that both Maria and Natasha had already had sex with Skye and it left a foul taste in her mouth, one that she had to get rid of because there was no need for jealously when she hadn't even met Skye, unless you count dream communication, then they had briefly met.

Briefly. Not even to allow her to leave this mission and go see her. So she had to reluctantly focus on the mission. It was a two week long intel gathering mission that soon turned into a month of recon and undercover work which led to this gala of sorts. It was like a initiation ceremony for a ring of paedophiles and human trafficking. It supposedly held some girls in the gala but they weren't too sure. It was disgusting either way and even worse, it was disguised under an auctioning event which meant civilians, which made the mission ten times more complicated. As well as ten times more annoying.

Bobbi pulled the sniper back up and levelled it at the entrance of the building. She watched as the people below slowly turned to violence as a solution for the fear and terror they felt. Honestly, all she did was shoot two bullets through the building, she didn't even hit anything, and yet these pompous bastards were already pulling out guns and grabbing their body guards to fight their fights for them. It was pathetic.

Plus it probably didn't help that the scum of the Earth were clearly frightened that someone had caught onto them. Not that they would know that, not yet anyways. Bobbi wanted to look at them in the eyes as they realised that they had been caught and that Bobbi was going to kill them.

Bobbi scowled at them as she set her line of sight up on her target; it was the head of the human trafficking operation, based on the intel he was trying to climb his way up in the world and wanted more power and was attempting to wiggle his way into world security. Infuriatingly enough, he made it pretty far up, that's why S.H.I.E.L.D decided to kill him off. Apparently it was agreed between the three agencies of America that it would be best for everyone involved if this man was to be outright killed and apparently Bobbi was the best one for the job. That was a massive lie in itself, she knew at least four people who would be better assassins than herself.

She sighed softly as she watched the people run around, scared out their minds with no clue what to do. Bobbi kept a careful eye on her target and lined him up, this would probably be the easiest assassination that she has ever done and would bring her confirmed kills up to ten, her unconfirmed kills were too high for her to bother keeping track of. Bobbi followed her target and pulled the trigger and watched as the bullet sailed through the air and right through the man's skull and caused him to drop like a sack of flour.

Easy stuff.

Annoyingly easy stuff.

"There. Done. Can I go now Hand?" she grumbled into her coms, she knew she shouldn't be grumpy but she couldn't help it

"Wow, what crawled up your ass, Morse?" Victoria asked.

Bobbi just snarled lightly, "you know fine well what's wrong with me."

"Play nice Morse, you're almost done. Just make sure those girls get out once the police arrive on scene, alright? I don't want them killed" Hand instructed.

Bobbi muttered a small 'affirmative' and used the new technology, micro bots or something, Bobbi wasn't really paying attention, to disintegrate the gun. It was a new way to make sure that kills could not be linked back to them, whilst the agencies agreed to kill their target it was best to leave no trace. Bobbi rolled her shoulders, causing them to let out an irritated crack. Bobbi grumbled some more as she stretched out, it had been ages since she last shifted, keeping a tight lid on it during this recon mission, she wondered if Hand would allow her to shift.

"So, Hand, you ever read Twilight?" Bobbi asked, it was a code for them, ask the person who was handling the mission (generally another wolf) if they had read a story with a wolf in it.

Hand snorted down the coms, deciding that since Bobbi already has most of the mission done, she could shift "Yes I have Agent Morse. It was terrible, but it was the craze" she replied, rolling her eyes and silencing the coms as she heard the familiar cracks of the bones shifting.

Bobbi groaned with delight as she shifted in her wolf form, the feeling of unrest slowly left her body as she shifted into a more familiar form, it brought comfort to her as she heard the distant voices of her pack, some of them appear to have shift. Probably Maria and Sharon, the two of them enjoyed being more in their wolf forms than their actual human skin.

 _'Shouldn't you be focusing on your mission Bobbi' Sharon enquired. Bobbi could easily imagine the women lounging lazily on a chair, more cat than wolf as she watched Maria pace around a room._

 _'I am focusing. I've done the main part, I'm just watching to make sure everything works itself out in regards to the victims' Bobbi mumbled back, her eyes still focused on the scene below._

 _'So what the hell is up with you Bobbi? You're usually all goofy and carefree and star wars this, star wards that, unless it concerns Hunter of course.' came Maria's thoughts._

 _Bobbi snarled aloud ' Don't talk about that asshole. I'm fine, just anxious to get home to meet Skye. I can feel the connection and I just want to make sure that it is real, and not in my head.' She replied_

 _'_ _BOBBI! Focus, someone is coming up behind you. You need to forget about Skye for a moment, just until you are safe.' Natasha snapped lightly, tapping into Bobbi's sense, something she didn't like to do often but she had to make sure that Bobbi wasn't going to get herself killed on a mission because of the mental link._

It was frustrating for all of them when it first happened and they all had to learn to get over with help from everyone else in the pack. God knows that when she first had her link, Maria had been constantly in her head during mission to make sure she didn't kill herself.

Bobbi lazily lifted her head as she pulled herself back to the present, forcing the voices of her pack to the back of her head as she watch two men creep up towards her, aiming their guns shakily at her.

" _That is the one the General said to look out for! The human wolf!_ _"_ _The man yelled out, hitting his partner with his hand in disbelief, the two of them sharing scared looks._

 _General? That was not good, it seemed that this operation was much larger than they originally thought and how the hell did they know about the wolf programme?_ _Everyone had been sworn to secrecy about the programme unless they had permission from Fury or Carter, which means there is a leak somewhere again or it was the original leak. This had to be reported right away._

'Natasha, did you get that?' Bobbi thought, allowing the link to be more open as she stood up and growled at the two men approaching her.

'Got it, got Sharon reporting to Fury.' Natasha replied back, an edge of irritation to her it was the original leak again, it meant that not all of the previous volunteers were dead and that would cause a problem for them.

Bobbi snarled as the two guards pulled the triggers to their guns, the bullets lodging themselves in her body but Bobbi easily shook it off and began a menacing prowl forward, her lips pulled back showing her her massive teeth, which were nice and sharp and very white, Bobbi took great pride in having good teeth.

 _'_ _Yeah it would be a shame if you got those nice white teeth stained red' Maria snarked._

 _Bobbi rolled her eyes as the three of them began to circle each other 'I will stain them if need be.'_

 _'Do it.' Came the command of Peggy Carter, 'The less people who know about the wolf programme the better Bobbi. Even if it means we have to start killing them off one by one like this. I want this leak kept to a minimum. Kill everyone there.'_

 _'Including the civilians?'Bobbi enquired as she lunged towards the men, wrapping her mouth around the first mans neck and roughly shaking her jaw, hearing the satisfying snap of his neck and tore her mouth away, making sure to take a chunk out of the guys neck just to safe. She turned round to the other guy, making sure to look as feral as possible with the blood dripping from her snarling mouth._

"Silver bullets! Where are the silver bullets?" The man screamed to himself as he shot blindly towards Bobbi. She quickly dodged the bullets, rolling in her massive form with snarls. She really did not appreciate being shot at.

 _'Leave the civilians for now, we've taken over the camera's in that area so we can identify them and follow them to make sure that they don't leave her with the knowledge of humans that can turn into wolves. If this got out...well, it would certainly be something.' Peggy sounded,her thoughts heavy with the burden of a potential break out of information 'The information that this project has gotten out is dire. We will be having a meeting with everyone to discuss this once you come back Bobbi. Get back safe.'she finished._

 _'Yes ma'am' Bobbi replied as she sprung on the other man, killing him effectively. Bobbi shook out her fur, hoping she didn't get any blood on it or else she was making Natasha give her a bath, and she was not going to make it easy for her. Bobbi looked out over the forrest where she lay hidden as she identified all her targets and then lunged into actions._

Taking a life was never easy, even if the people deserved it. Sure there was a sense that you were giving justice to the victims but the knowledge that you were taking someone's life, something that had been ingrained since birth that was absolutely wrong, felt weird to do. Bobbi had long gotten over the feeling of guilt from killing people. All of these people deserved a fate worse than what she was giving them.

Eventually the criminals were dead, the civilians had scattered with terrifying screams as soon as Bobbi made her first kill. Probably just thought it was a wolf gone crazy. Hopefully thats what they will continue to think for the rest of their lives, if they found out that it was a human in a wolf form basically going on a killing spree...well, it could be very damaging to them and the secret organisations, if it got out that it was them creating these beasts.

"Morse. Extraction in twenty minutes at rendezvous alpha." came Hand's voice over the coms. Bobbi just gruffed back an affirmative and ran towards the point in her wolf form, hoping that none of this would be on official record of the mission.

Bobbi quickly shifted back into her human form once she was 5 minutes out from her extraction point and jogged the rest of the way, quickly cleaning her face and making sure she looked like she didn't just kill a bunch of people.

She walked onto the quinjet that had been provided for her pick up and chucked her bag onto one of the many seats. She walked lazily over the co-pilot's chair and dropped down and shot a grin at her friend Kara, another wolf.

"How's it going Bobbi?" Kara asked as she started up the plane, flicking many of the switches.

Bobbi just heaved as sigh and followed Kara's lead and helped to set up the plane for flight, it took less than two minutes for them to do "Did you not think to do this before?" Bobbi teased lightly, placing her hands on the steering and glanced at Kara, who rolled her eyes.

"Nah, thought it would be a good bonding experience Morse" she shot back, grinning as they took off.

"We'll get to have our annual bonding time at this meeting" Bobbi mumbled, watching the clouds fly by.

"I heard" Kara replied, cringing a little " I don't understand how the project got out. Fury and Carter must be shitting themselves. Plus, getting all the pack together? Remember what happened last time? The beta's tore into each other, that is something I do not wish to repeat, Maria packs a punch" she finished, a grimace on her face as she remember the fight that broke out and finish with Maria on top, smirking at them all.

"In your defence, the alpha's were encouraging it. Although it was fun to see Hill kick your ass. You managed to take a few down yourself but yeah Hill just beats everyone" Bobbi said, snickering.

"Sounds like you've got a crush there Morse, doesn't Maria already have a mate? Besides, aren't you all hooked up on the new girl, Skye?" Kara teased.

Bobbi rolled her eyes "Yeah Maria does, but doesn't stop her from fucking everyone in the pack!" Bobbi laughed, it was well known in the pack that sex was one of Maria's favourite way to relieve the stress of work. "Besides, I haven't actually met Skye yet, but I can't wait to meet her. There is just this connection between us, you know? I just can't wait to go meet her and just confirm what I've been hoping."

"Bobbi... you're like a lovesick puppy!" Kara laughed, it was unusual for her friend to gush over someone like this and it was adorable to watch as her eyes unfocused as she talked about Skye and the connection they have.

Bobbi did her best to not blush, but it was difficult to do so when she had Kara teasing her in person and Maria and Natasha teasing her in her head. "Shut up, Kara!" She tried her best to just laugh it off.

The rest of the flight passed in small talk and junk food. They told each other stories of stupidity from their on pack, and weird things that their alpha's have made them do or what weird things they done themselves. It was relaxing and Bobbi missed the simpler times when the wolf programme was just getting started and the two packs were constantly around each other, almost acting as one pack. Until either one of the beta's or alphas fucked up the peace. It was still nice though. There wasn't much time for pack bonding recently due to the increase in missions that required their skill set.

Ever since the alien attack on New York, it seemed like all the organisations, good or bad, were attempting to up their game in regards to technology. So SHIELD either had to regulate these organisations, or destroy the new technology and steal the plans. It wasn't something that was easily done by a group of spies, which is why it was much easier to send an enhanced wolf, a good getaway disguise, with inhuman abilities than to send a team.

It didn't mean that any of the wolves like it, but it had to get done. Bobbi grumbled softly in her seat, causing Kara to look back over at her.

"How long was this mission? Like a month? When was the last time you got a proper sleep?" Kara asked, concerned for her wellbeing.

"Eh... Probably just before the mission." Bobbi replied

"Go to sleep Bobbi, you must be knackered. Get some rest for the meeting because for one, you'll be leading it and giving information and two, you'll need your strength for meeting Skye for the first time." She said teasingly "I've got the plane"

Bobbi nodded to Kara and just curled up in the co-pilot chair, reclining it back so that it was half way down and much more comfortable to sleep in. Kara stared at her fondly as she looked at her closest friend out with her pack.

Bobbi finished her description of her mission and the pack was silent. It was a lot to take in, how would someone know about the wolves enough to spot them, although they were the size of horses so they were easy to spot, but also know to use silver bullets.

"Well, I guess that does prove it. Someone out there knows about us and how to hurt us." Jayden concluded, resigning to the fact that Peggy was right about the situation.

"Yes, it means we need to be more careful on our missions, gather as much intel as you can, focus on the silver weapons. We need to figure out how this all started, I'll see if Fury will let me assign some of you to hunting the leak down as a mission. Other than that, everyone go on their missions as normal. Melinda, keep an eye out for anything suspicious, your team has a lot more freedom to do what they want than everyone here until we can get this task force up and running." Peggy instructed. "Anything else we need to discuss? No Natasha, we do not need to discuss how cute your new pack member is." Peggy said, cutting off Natasha before she even started.

"I think it's something to discuss. I'm insanely cute." Skye grumbled jokingly, looking at Natasha with a grin on her face.

"So do I, but apparently the only cute one here to Peggy is her niece." Natasha joked back.

"Maria, darling, I'm sorry you were right, they are as bad as each other." Peggy apologised to Maria.

"Told you! Also, Sharon, that's another vote in my favour." Maria said, grinning. Sharon rolled her eyes at her soulmate.

"Well, if there is nothing else, you are all free to go." Peggy said, standing up, everyone automatically standing up after her.

"Natasha, wait." Peggy called "Bring your hoard as well."

"Pack, Peggy, my pack, I know sometimes they act like zombies when they binge watch a tv series on netflix but they are still wolves." Natasha joked, causing Peggy to roll her eyes again. "So what's up?"

Peggy held up a camera with a smirk, "Line up, it's photo time!"

There was a few groans, but everyone obeyed. They looked like a mish mash of people, all photoshopped together, but that didn't seem to matter to Peggy. Peggy counted them down and at the last second, Skye got a text which caused her to pull out her phone and grinned at it. Someone uploaded a new cat video, ha.

"Skye was looking at her phone! You need to take another one." Clint complained.

"No, no, it turned out perfectly. It shows her personality. I love it. I'll give you copies later." Peggy said, she turned the camera around so that they could all see what the photo looked like, and Skye was right, they did look like they had all been photoshopped together. They all looked distracted, but it seemed to go alright.

"Alright, I'll see you all later." Peggy said, leaving them to make their way back to the main rooms.

"I've got to say, that meeting went well, no one hit each other, no one argued." Natasha said cheerfully, "Now, I know we are all splitting up tomorrow, so do we stay here or show Skye the pack house?"

"Pack house? How can you guys afford all this stuff?" Skye questioned, they all had a lot of things and their own rooms, surely it had to be expensive and would SHIELD even pay for it?

"Howard Stark. He knew about the project when Peggy was patient zero, and knew about the plans to expand the project. He said that as long as Peggy is in charge of us, the wolves that is, then he would provide the money and accommodation we needed to get the project up and running. Which is why we have one giant ass mansion that can house all of us with rooms to spare." Maria explained.

"Huh, Howard must have really liked Peggy. Were they like secret soulmates or something?" Skye asked.

"Nah, Howard just appreciated everything Peggy had done for him over the years as well as they way she helped raise Tony. Probably a bit of guilt too." Natasha answered.

"Oh." Skye mumbled, falling into a silence as the pack talked amongst themselves. They decided that they would just stay here as everyone had to leave by tomorrow night at the earliest, so there was no point leaving here. Bobbi walked along side her for a few moments before slipping her arm around Skye's waist with a smug smirk.

That was another thing Skye had to think on. A part of her felt like she and Bobbi just dove straight into a relationship without discussing anything, but to be fair, Skye didn't care, they were soulmates. They can learn about each other whilst still enjoying the physical and mental aspects that come with being with your soulmate. Skye just had to think of a great way to get to know Bobbi without it seeming like an interrogation. Also the childhood that Skye had, it wasn't exactly something Skye was willing to talk about, soulmate or not , she tended to keep that to herself.

"Well, we could be play 'Never Have I Ever'" Bobbi whispered in her ear, causing a shudder to run through her body.

"Sounds like a great idea." Skye whispered back, unsure why they were whispering as all the pack could hear them with their enhanced hearing.

"It does sound like a great idea. It means Skye can get to know all of us in a fun way, and get wasted at the same time, who doesn't love that." Natasha said, grinning as she led the pack automatically into her room. She went to a cupboard and opened it to reveal a ton of alcohol. It held a mixture of vodka, gin, whisky, wine, beer, even cider. "This ought to get us drunk enough to reveal our deepest, darkest secrets." She teased.

"Do you really think that is wise when half of us have missions tomorrow." May asked seriously, she was standing against the counter, staring at Natasha with a raised eyebrow.

"Shouldn't you still be riding the high of a new pack member?" Natasha questioned her mate, walking over to her and slid her arms around her waist. "C'mon it will be fun, we have great metabolisms, we will all be sober as a nun by tomorrow afternoon." she tempted her mate.

Melinda rolled her eyes but seemed to accept it, grabbing some of the whisky and slid gracefully onto the floor, "well?" she questioned them.

Everyone scurried to the alcohol cupboard and grabbed something they liked, Skye went straight for the vodka, because why not? It's been a while since she's drank, and the first time she's drank legally, she thought with a snicker.

Of course Skye forget about the whole pack can read your mind thing as someone spat out their drink in shock.

"Wait, how old are you Skye?" Clint asked, eyeing her up.

"Twenty-one" She answered truthfully with a shrug.

"You know Clint, if you remembered our conversations, you would have remembered that I told you that my soulmate was twenty-one this year." Bobbi said in exasperation.

"She's legal and that's all we care about, besides if she was in Scotland, she woulda been legal three years ago." Fitz said, shrugging as he poured himself some whisky into a glass. Simmons slid down beside him with a smile, squeezing his shoulder as she peered at his glass in curiosity. He lifted it to her mouth as she tried some, and immediately grimace. Fitz laughed at her reaction and placed a kiss on the side of her cheek as the two of them settled in to play the game.

Skye smiled at her friends interaction, the two of them were so cute. She looked over at Bobbi, and grin as the women had some massive Star Wars glasses ready for them. What a nerd. She loved it. Bobbi grinned at Skye and wiggled her eyebrows. Skye laughed and joined her soulmate on the ground, leaning against her as they all slowly made a circle, filled with random glasses and a mixture of alcohol.

Once they were all settled, Natasha placed a pint sized glass in the middle and looked at them all, "Let's make it interesting. If you have done it, drink, if you haven't pour it in the glass in the middle, and if you can't come up with a question in thirty seconds or less, you have to down whatever is in the glass."

They all automatically cheered at the idea.

"Let's do this!" Izzy yelled, for too hyped already for the game.

Natasha gave them once last intense look with that stupid grin of hers, "do you wanna play a game?"


	10. Chapter 10

**SKYE**

The pack had fallen asleep quickly after their game had ended. They were all drunk off their assess, spluttering through their answers with each one becoming more and more ridiculous by the question which had quickly defeat the original purpose of the drinking game. It didn't take much more to convince Natasha to call a night – being the typical Russian, she was much more sober than everyone else and was keeping an eye on the time so they all did not royally fuck up in the morning.

The best part of the night for Skye was the way that they did not bother going to their beds, Maria and Natasha just pulled blankets out from random places in the room and placed them over the room and the pack just seemed to flop on to them, shuffling themselves into a comfortable arrangement of tangled limbs and drunken giggles.

Bobbi leaned over to her, a lose and happy grin on her face, she gently gripped Skye's arm and awkwardly navigated/shuffled them to a more comfortable location. Bobbi hummed happily as she flopped down against Clint's side, pulling his arm securely around herself before pulling Skye tightly against her torso.

Clint had grumble out a quiet, "You comfy, Bob's?" before flinging an arm across his eyes, easily falling into a deep slumber. Bobbi grinned at his sleeping face before she sloppily kissed Skye's check and then shoved her face against the crook of Skye's neck, falling asleep in the same instant fashion that Clint had. Skye had just laid there, slightly bewilder with the way Bobbi easily navigated the pack into making herself comfortable.

It had felt weird, lying together in a pile of bodies, each one sprawled out differently and hearing the way some mumbled and others snored whilst some were suspiciously silent whilst sleeping, but despite that, it had not taken Skye long to fall asleep – exhausted by the excitement of the day and the sleepiness that comes with one too many drinks had her falling suite with her pack mates.

The morning had come all too soon for Skye and she rolled awkwardly away from Bobbi as she woke. She slowly pushed herself up, leaning heavily against her arms as she titled her head and studied the sight in front of her with bleary eyes. Most of the pack were still sleeping, curled up against each other and clinging with a familiarises that Skye had come to know in her short time with Maria and Natasha.

Of course the only other person awake right now was Natasha, her green eyes watching her with a calm eeriness that Skye had associated with age – a look she had seen on one of her older foster parents; they way the took in young Skye's appearance and tight grip on her battered, weather down backpack which conveniently match with the rest of her outfit. It was the look that made Skye think that this wasn't the first foster child they had like this and that the heaviness in their eyes showed that they knew it wasn't the last foster child they would have that would come to them like this. It was a look that said they knew what the person in front of them was going through, but with a heavy heart, unable to stop it.

Which made Skye confused as to why Natasha was giving her that look when they had just woken up. Skye gave her a weird, confused look, hoping that it would prompt Natasha into telling her what was wrong but Natasha just shrugged and glanced around the pack.

' _Want to go for a walk?_ ' She thought to Skye, starling her slightly but Skye nodded her agreement promptly.

The two of them carefully pried themselves from the pile of humans and moved quietly as they could away from them. Natasha kept silent as they walked away from the pack, her arms held close to her body as her hands slunk themselves into her pockets of last nights clothes. Natasha seemed to not be bother by anything on the surface but the hard look in her eyes and the soft buzzing from her head (which meant that she was concealing her thoughts from Skye) withheld any further information. It was a little unsettling. Skye knew, though, that Natasha would never do anything to intentionally hurt her and figured that this walk was more of a information walk that she did not want the others to hear.

The quick smirk that Natasha sent her easily confirmed her theory that Natasha was just going to fill her in on some stuff before they all left that morning put her at ease and allowed her own arms to swing freely as they walked in silence and out through the secret entrance and onto the eerily empty grounds of the Triskellion.

They walked in silence for a few more minutes before Natasha flopped gracefully under a huge oak tree and patted the ground next to her softly. Skye sat down beside her, her legs folding neatly beneath her.

"We have an issue." Natasha started, staring out straight ahead, "You haven't shifted yet and you are leaving in the next four hours. This means you will have to discreetly shift on a daily basis, should be easily done between you, May and Fitzsimmons."

"Sounds like fun." Skye replied, a little bit sarcastically. It wasn't like she was going to be staying with two apparent super spies.

"It's going to be a bit of a struggle, but you'll just have to play along for the time being unfortunately. Things are brewing and I feel like it would actually be safer for you and your new team to be up in the air. The only one I am uncertain about is Ward. Something about the guy unsettles me and I'm not sure what it is. I just need you to be vigilant of him, okay?" Natasha said in hushed tones as she walked about the base, acting as though the walls had ears.

"Other than acting like he grew up in the woods, isolated from everyone, he doesn't seem that bad?" Skye said, a hint of questioning in her tone, because something must have happened. Whether it was Natasha directly interacting with Ward or if it were her thoughts and feelings through May, Fitz or Simmons.

Natasha sighed as she turned to her youngest, and most innocent member of the pack, in retrospect to the spy world of course. It wasn't that she didn't want to go ahead and divulge of this information, she just did not want to freak Skye out. As a whole, they were all moving very fast with Skye, limit preparation time, not shifting with everyone else and constantly separated from the pack. It was all variables that they always took carefully into consideration when adding new members to the pack and Skye would be one of the few to not follow their plan. It sometimes led to weird things happening, but it would leave her system soon enough. Natasha just did not want her to go through it at all.

"There is a lot going on right now. Stuff that not everyone in the pack is aware of, and stuff that everyone but you is. Until now of course, because you need to know when you're going to be living on a plane with her. May isn't normally like this." Natasha said, seemingly stressed at the thought of her soul mate.

"What do you mean?" Skye responded cautiously, when she had first joined the pack, May had warmed up to her fairly quickly, but the last couple of times she had interacted with May, it felt like she was speaking to a brick wall. The women would just stare right through her, sometimes she'd get a small scowl but otherwise just a normal, almost robotic response. May wasn't being outright mean and cold to her, just a little distant.

"Melinda went through something traumatic a few years back. She's never been fully able to accept what happened and still beats herself up over it. I'm not going to tell you what happened, because it isn't my place, nor Fitz, Simmons or Coulsons. If you want to know, you'll have to ask May." Natasha said calmly but their was an undertone of seriousness and the way Natasha's eye narrowed slightly made Skye believe that if she tried to find away around this, there would be some serious consequences.

It was the first time Skye had seen Natasha being 100% serious when issuing a threat and it was director at her. She could also see the alpha, lurking beneath the surface, ready to strike if Skye were to go against what Natasha said. An order, but not an outright one. Skye nodded her acceptance of Natasha, slightly terrified of the alpha.

Natasha seemed to straighten up and the feeling of Natasha closing in on her with quiet threats disappeared. "I'm glad you understand." Natasha said quietly, it was silence for a brief moment until Natasha seemed to remember why she had taken Skye away from the pack. "Melinda wont be what you are expecting once returning to the Bus. Just know that she does care, she just carries a burden on her shoulder than I don't think she'll ever be able to get rid of. I want you to understand this before going back on that bus. I don't want you accusing her of being uncaring, cold or robotic when she doesn't automatically side with you or back you up. Because for the time being, you are all undercover. You all have a part to play and to continue being near strangers to each other. If you see anyone from the pack in your journeys. You know nothing of them. Forget how they have treated you before hand. You will simply be another stray that they picked up from the street and working at constant level for S.H.I.E.L.D. Understood?" Natasha said, making eye contact with Skye.

Skye honestly felt like crying. She had this feeling of being reprimanded and she wasn't sure why. It was a lot of talk of keeping secrets and hiding. Something that she previously, actively disagreed with and was working to bring down. Now it seemed like if she did not go along with this there would be dire consequences. Skye didn't understand why this had not been brought up before with her. It seems like important information to go on, but she understood the basic underlying message of Natasha's word. She was going to be treated as though she was untrustworthy and not up to their standards. Which, to be fair, if Skye hadn't joined the pack, she would have been treated this way anyways.

"Yeah." She managed to crock out, trying to get her feelings under lid. She knew that Natasha was trying to protect her soul mate and the pack as a whole, but it still stung to hear the words.

"Good," Natasha mumbled, pulling Skye in close for a tight hug "I don't mean to be mean Skye, I just need you to understand this before I can let you go. I need you to be safe, I need you to help keep the others safe as well. If it means being a bit more harsh on you, so be it." Natasha continued quietly, tightening her grip on Skye.

Skye accepted the warmth of the hug and love she could feel radiating off Natasha. She knew that Natasha was not being malicious, simply cautious for everyone and has to take more than Skye into consideration when leaving her to her own devices. She held Natasha back just as tightly, quietly taking in their remaining time alone for lights knows how long.

Natasha pulled them apart and pressed a soft kiss to the top of her head, "don't worry, this wont be the last you see me for months on end. I'm very good at sneaking on and off that bus" Natasha finished with a wink before turning the two back in the direction that they came from. They slowly made their way back to the back, enjoying a quiet discussion about computer programmes that they found useful in their line of work. It was a tender moment between the two and Skye was sad to be losing this in a few hours. She slowed down her walking, hoping that Natasha wouldn't notice. Stupid, since Natasha noticed everything.

"It will be fine Skye" Natasha reassured her, squeezing her shoulder with a small smile as she led them back into the room of sleeping wolves. "Like I said, I can get on and off that bus without anyone noticing."

"I would." Came a sleepy, quietly grumpy voice from the corner of the kitchen.

Skye looked up and smiled when she saw a half asleep May, nursing a cup of tea and what seemed like a dozen cups sitting on the counter as she prepared the morning coffee for everyone.

"Hey softy." Natasha said in a warm greeting, leaving Skye and walking up into Melinda's personal space, wrapping her arms comfortably around Melinda's waist. "Love you." Natasha mumbled, pressing her face against the back on Melinda's neck.

Skye watched as Melinda rolled her eyes fondly and mumbled the affectionate statement back before navigating out of Natasha's arms to finish making the abundance of coffee's. Natasha pouted as her wife left her arms and decided to make thing difficult and quickly jumped on Melinda's back, hugging her with her arms and legs, clinging to her like a kola.

Skye watched in amusement as this happened as the two of them started bickering playfully about whether this was necessary or not. Their teasing was causing the rest of the pack to slowly wake up, grumbles falling softly from their lips as the navigated the limbs of the pack.

Skye found it hard to believe that Melinda was not always like this, the pack didn't seem to be treating her any different, well at least from what Skye could tell. Or maybe that was the key in all of it. None of them acted differently, so it would be easier for Melinda to be this carefree. Skye almost gulp comically as she watched as Melinda tense under Natasha's body and the way Natasha slowly turned to stare at her, her eyes piercing.

' _Not that it is any concern of mine, Melinda who? Don't know what you guys think I'm thinking about, but I'm definitely not thinking about the Melinda May who happens to share the same name as this Melinda I'm thinking about_ ' Skye thought desperately, unsure how to exactly get out of the situation. It wasn't her fault, this information was all fresh in her mind and she was trying to process what Natasha meant.

There was a tense moment before Melinda gave out a tiny snort and spun around to face Skye. There was a moment between the two, where Skye felt and understood the emotions shifting through Melinda. The feelings she had with Natasha besides her, with the pack with and the feelings she had when they were all separated, how it seemed to affect the feelings associated with her trauma, how it could amply and dampen how it made her feel. All of that in a matter of seconds.

It helped Skye understand, it helped her understand a lot about Melinda actually. She also knew better than to think on the subject again.

' _Thank you_ ' she thought quietly to May, unsure if she heard it or not but was assuming that they were all going to move on as though that little blunder did not happen. Which was fine by Skye.

"Is that coffee?" Maria mumbled as she stumbled into the kitchen area, yawing and hand outstretch as a snickering Natasha place a coffee cup in her hand. "Mmm... I love coffee" Maria said, looking alarming more awake after only a few sips.

"Weirdo." Sharon said with a smile as she appeared behind Maria, her arms wrapping around her lovers waist.

The rest of the pack began to fully wake up and made their way to the kitchen area to grab their preferred morning drink. They all seemed to just stand about as they tried to fully wake up, the lingering effects of a hangover on some of their minds. Skye titled her head as she watch with fondness as they all seemed to interact with each other, small touches that they gave to reassure themselves that their pack mates where there. It made her wonder when the last time they were all together in a relaxed situation. They always seemed to be separated for months at a time, were the other packs like this? Or was it themselves because they all seemed to excel at what they do, she guessed that is why they were all specialist in their field.

It made Skye wonder when the next time they would all be together as she tried to stop the teary smile from appearing on her face. It was strange how in such a short period of time, Skye came to care about these people more than anyone else in her life. Skye even thought she might be ready to say the big "L" word aloud to them soon. They had shown her more empathy and care than anyone else, they took her at her faults and went 'hey, we have faults too.' They didn't dismiss her feelings, they encourage her to talk about them and look at situations from both perspectives. Taught her how to survive better on her on but more importantly, how to survive as a pack. Skye couldn't help but think how the pack was able to survive separately.

These thoughts were going to make it harder to leave in a few hours.

Next thing Skye knew, she was being tackled to the ground by something big and fluffy. A wolf. She had to compose herself for a second because, really should have been expecting a wolf to appear at any moment, but no one mentioned how bloody big they were. Nor who this was. Skye looked up at the mainly black wolf, who had white feet. 'That's hilarious' Skye thought as she slide her hands into the fur, thinking about how soft it was. There was only one other defining feature on the wolf, a brown patch of fur on the ribs. She reached down slowly and rub over it.

A soul mark.

The thought came instantly and she looked up again at the wolf that had her pinned, bright yellow eyes waiting with excitement.

"Maria?" Skye questioned and was greeting by the wolf's mouth opening wide, a smile, she presumed.

'Stop being sad.' Maria thought to her, a low whine escaping the wolf as she manoeuvred to Skye's side and bump her nose against Skye constantly, pushing her towards where they had slept last night.

Skye grumbled but complied as she sat in the centre and Maria curled around her protectively. A moment later Bobbi appeared next to her and pulled her into her arms.

"It's okay, Skye." she said simply, as though that would fix all the feelings that Skye would have. Skye blinked hard, forcing back the tears and feelings that came with the statement.

"God damn it, Bobbi." She chocked out but leaned closer to her soul mate, clinging to her.

Natasha sat down on Skye's other side, all three of them leaning back against Maria's wolf form, and wrapped one arm around Skye's shoulder. One by the one, the pack made their way over to them, choosing either to stay as they were or shift as they found a comfortable position. A sobering mood quickly clouded over the pack.

"We'll be okay." Natasha said calmly, after everyone had settled down. "We always are. Whether we are apart or together, we're the best. We can handle it. We will have our good and bad days just like everyone else. But we have each other. Mentally or physically, we can get through this. We wont be separated like this, this constant separation for much longer. We'll get back to the old days, where is was all of us together, going on missions together and having each other's back in the field, but for the time being, we just need to suck it up. Look after who we can and when we can. Keep each other company." Natasha spoke like a leader and looked at them all reassuringly, making sure to spread that feeling across the pack.

It seemed like Skye was not the only one feeling this way, it made her feel better, like she wasn't over reacting.

' _Of course not sweetheart, you were probably catching a lot of our feelings, more than your own. We're sorry._ ' Came Sharon's thoughts. She was also in her wolf form and seemed to look the exact opposite from Maria, a mostly white wolf with black paws, but the same brown patch on her ribs.

Skye sighed in acceptance, in a happy way, glad that she wasn't the only one feeling like this. She would much prefer to spend the rest of the day curled up like this, some random movie on in the background as they sat silently or maybe quietly talking. Drifting between sleeping and being awake. Skye constantly felt sleepy right now, Simmons explained that it was just down to the changes going on her body and how she will still continue to feel like this for up to three days after she first shifts.

"We can just relax for the next hour if you want." Natasha offered her and for the first time, Skye let out an minimalistic whine at that thought, because it shouldn't be always about what _she_ wants. They were a pack, and they had to decided things as a pack.

Natasha looked on, a little shocked at the noise that Skye made, but aware of what the girl was feeling;

"Well, I'm going to stay here for the next couple of hours until we all have to leave. I know that Mel will stay here cause she loves me and so will Maria because Maria can't stand to be away from me. So needy. Sharon will stay because Maria is. Clint will stay because Clint is also needy but not as much as Maria. Fitz and Simmons are actually asleep again, so I guess they aren't moving. Izzy looks super comfortable lying on top of them, keeping guard I think. So really, just you and Bobbi have to decided whether you want to stay here or not." Natasha supplied innocently as she made herself more comfortable in an overly dramatic way.

Skye grinned, because how couldn't she? It was a such a Natasha thing, a kind, stupid and an alpha like Natasha kind of thing that cause Skye to curl up closer to her and Bobbi followed Skye, closing around her like a blanket as she made herself comfortably on Natasha.

"We're going to be okay" Skye whispered, whether to comfort herself or to reassure the pack, she wasn't sure.

"We're going to be okay." Bobbi confirmed in her ear, her arms tightening as they heard the echoes of the pack agreeing with them quietly.

They were going to survive the separation, as dramatic as it sounded. They were going to be okay.


	11. Chapter 11

**February 17th**

 **Maria**

It had been just over a week since they first shifted and since then, Maria has noticed an increase in her sense in her human form, when she was previously told that the serum had minimal to none impact on human sense. At first, when she started receiving the serum, she notice an increase in her senses and strength. It had been overwhelm in loud situations, especially when moving through the base during the morning hours.

Maria couldn't figure out if they simply had been lying to her about the effects or if this was a side effect of her having too much. She could ask but she was currently trying to drown out the noise of people arguing a few rooms down from her office. How was she suppose to finish this paper work, deal with mission layout and plan extractions when they were arguing about the stupidest of things. Maria was half tempted to go down there and tell them to move, or scream at them, or rip their vocal chords from their throat so they could never speak about these petty things again.

' _I can feel the anger radiating off of you, what's up?_ ' Natasha said, her voice floating into her head.

' _Leave me alone._ ' Maria snapped back, sick of not having her head to herself.

' _Grumpy._ ' Natasha grumbled, but seemingly left Maria to her own devices.

Maria knew she had been a bit on the grumpy side recently, especially when it came to Natasha. It was just that she was so used to being on her own nowadays. Phil and May were away most of the time, doing whatever high level classified missions Fury could come up with. It wasn't that she had trouble making friends inside S.H.I.E.L.D, it was that she just focused on the job. First dealing with leaving the marines, joining S.H.I.E.L.D whilst recovering, learning the tricks and the trade of working in a spy industry and the moving up at a comfortably fast pace.

Sure, she made some acquaintances that she would join for a drink after work and talk to in the passing, as well as having passable information on their personal lives, but nothing like 'come over to my house we're drinking wine and watching horror films' kind of friends. Even if her acquaintances become her friends, they were just as motivated and dedicated to their jobs as she were and working their way up the ladder and making a name for themselves within the work place.

Maria sighed, it was just a big adjustment for herself. She found her thoughts wandering to Natasha, wondering about her well-being, was she happy with the mission? Was she getting enough sleep and eating enough? It was very irritating when she noticed a stab of hunger or a random feeling, generally boredom which was usually followed with mischief as she did something with Barton. On the upside, Maria now knew when Natasha and Clint were next going to strike and could finally catch them in the act and discipline them the way she has been dreaming about for years; toilet cleaning duty. Well, technically she could not do that as it would involve more hygiene training and a shift in their contracts, she'll just bind them to a desk or teaching the newbies. The two of them hated both options, so a win-win for herself.

The three agents that were bickering down the hall had still not stopped and had moved on to trivial topics/arguments about handlers that were starting to get inappropriate for work. She might to conveniently walk about and hear about it and get them to stop or at least move somewhere else where she couldn't hear about what her fellow agents have been up to during their downtime but still technically on the clock. The amount of rules that were broken and what other agents got away with because they were simply skilled agents was ridiculous, but it was easier to maintain ignorance for their skills and kept the more mild of their agents in line with vague threats that they occasionally carried out.

Which brought her back to her original thought, how was she hearing them? The walls were thick enough without the extra padding of the soundproof. If it had none of that, Maria could understand why she was hearing them and expected to hundred of other voices of the floors below her. Both Natasha and Peggy assured her during the initial interviews about the sense that there wasn't much improvement on them but they were above average. When it came to S.H.I.E.L.D buildings they said that they weren't able to hear much more than normal, due to the way it was build to prevent being over heard. She would really have to speak to them about this, because if they were lying about this, what else could they be lying about?

Maria sighed again and put down the file she was working, there was no point of trying to continue now that she has went off in a tangent. She had been working for the past ten hours with barely any breaks, a quick 5 minute break to grab coffee and a fifteen minute lunch. Natasha would probably go off at her for not eating more than a lunch. It was another thing that she was getting used to , the increase in her metabolism and having to eat more than usual. She felt the hunger, but generally did what she has always done, ignored it until she finished what she was doing. Except that her work load never seemed to end, every hour something happened, new missions, too classified for anyone else but her or Fury to organise the extraction.

Her shift ended two hours ago, when doing office work she was only really asked to work a standard 8/9 hour shift but tended to put more work into, for tonight though, she was giving up. If Fury needed her help on something, he knew where to get her. She stood from her desk, closing everything down securely and loking files away before leaving. She purposely passed the the gossiping agents and glared into the room, causing them to jump in surprise at the sight of her passing.

"Holy crap, I thought Hill had left." One said, seemingly still trying to catch his breath.

"Dunno, I guess not. What's got her so angry at this time anyways? No one else was around to piss her off." Another agent questioned

"You don't think she heard us?" The third said, putting their two cent into the conversation.

"Nah, no way she could have heard her, besides, haven't you guys heard her nicknames? Ice Queen, Hard ass hill? The Bitch?" The first agent said, laughing as the others joined in.

Maria scowled as she entered the lift, making her way down to the basement floors to meet the pack. Stupid agents would certainly pay for their comments. Maybe not within the next days, but somewhere down the line. Although, she shouldn't really be punishing them for something that she supposedly wouldn't be able to hear, according to human standards. Maria just grumbled about the unfairness of the situation to herself and fired a text to Fury, letting him know that she was signing off and that she was just a couple of floors away if it was an emergency. She really couldn't be bother making the journey all the way back home when no doubt something would happen during the night, bringing her back here. They had some very tense missions going on currently.

It wasn't until she was stalking the halls of the base that she realised she was walking through them without anyone with her. At the sudden revelation, everything seemed to just get darker. It seemed like it was waiting for her to fully realise that she was alone. The darkness crept along her vision, taunting her, trying to pull her further into the darkness to the empty void of silence that shouldn't really be silent. She knew that the others where down here, as all of them came here as soon as their shift finished – yet, her heart was beating a thousand times faster in her chest and she swore she could hear whispers as shapes formed in the distance, too distant to make anything out but close enough that she could see the outline, looking more and more like the wolves.

Her breath caught in her throat as she took a few fumbling steps backs, she tried to splutter out words to catch the other attention, but nothing was coming out. Then the worst that could happen, happened. The outline started moving towards her, faster and faster and Maria did nothing but stand there and stare in horror. The whispers grew louder and louder into shrieks in front of her and the shape took over her vision, getting darker and darker until it revealed a bright red colour.

What?

"Maria, Maria! Snap out of it." Natasha yelled in her face.

Maria blinked, bringing herself back to the present.

Natasha and Peggy were standing in front of her, looking concerned. The whispers and shriek would have appeared to have been them. Was the shape them as well? What most threw her off, was the fact it was not pitch black like she thought, the hallway was brightly lit, she should have known that. They don't leave the lights off until they know Maria was with them. She could have sworn it was pitch black.

Maria stared at them in confusion, her fingers crept up and gripped Natasha shirt as she continued to just stare blankly at her, processing what just happened. What the hell was that?

"Maria, I think you just had a panic induced hallucination. A common side effect of PTSD. It's okay, lets get out of here." Natasha said, a lot more quietly this time as she gently pulled Maria to main room.

"I'm fine." She mumbled, pulling her arm back from Natasha, shaking her head gently as though that would get rid of the bad thoughts.

"Maria-" Natasha started

"I'm fine, Natasha." She snapped, scowling as she moved ahead in front of them. Eager to get away from them and their concerned questioning. Realistically, she knew that they had done nothing wrong and that she was just being irrationally angry.

"Maria, stop ignoring me." Natasha said, a hard edge to her tone as Maria opened the doors to see the others lounging on the chairs, trying too hard to look as though they were just not eavesdropping.

"I'm not." Maria supplied automatically, feeling as though the statement was more of a command.

"You are. You've ignored me all day today. You've been in a foul mood, what's wrong?" Natasha asked, moving to stand by her, concern in her eyes.

"Nothing Natasha, just tired. Nothing new." Maria insisted, actively trying to push the anger down to stop Natasha's attempt at mother-henning her.

"Maria, something's up. You got half way through the hall then you just stopped and panicked. I just want to make sure you're okay after that. You can be grumpy all you want, but are you okay?" Natasha pushed again.

Maria could feel that the women really did just want to know if she was okay. Maria figured she should just let the women do her alpha thing, her anger was starting to simmer now, but she had no idea if that was her own doing or of someone else's choice.. Honestly, she was okay if it was someone else, it felt like the anger had just been clouding her mind, making seemingly innocent things have bad intentions.

"I'll be okay" Maria said, changing her stance, softening slightly, "just a restless nights sleep, yeah?"

A very restless night, it felt like she had no sleep at all, if it wasn't for the weird dreams, she would have thought she did not get any sleep. Weird dreams of blue men and scripture on walls. It was all strange and filled for later analysis when she had some free time.

"You sure it's just that?" Natasha asked cautiously, her eyes flickering to Peggy, as though the two of them had been talking about her previously.

They probably had.

"Yeah. Just, lack of sleep, everything is just so loud. I didn't realise how loud things would be." Maria said, tacking on the hearing issue at the end there, to see if they would slip up or be honest with her.

Of course that was never going to work because she was talking to two of the best spies in the world. One of whom literally started revolutionising the spy industry within America.

Natasha and the other alphas all glanced at each other, a sure sign of communication. They looked resigned, making Maria think they had been lying to her. But why?

"When you did the initial interviews about the changes we were experiencing in our current forms, we may have under-estimated the increase in senses. It's different for everyone, it's like it is based on our previous hearing skills. We couldn't narrow it down. We figured it Fury knew, he'd go for more physically fit agents rather than the agents who had the skills, or at least have their physical aspects taken more into consideration. He's desperate to push this operation through to become a success. We knew his heart is in the right place, but we figured this was for the best." Peggy explained, taking over for Natasha.

Maria nodded along, it made sense in all honesty. Even Maria couldn't be one hundred percent sure that Fury wouldn't start putting the wrong people forward for the project. S.H.I.E.L.D had mindless grunts, who were in peak physical condition and good at following orders but not much more. If Fury started getting them involved with the programme, the would find themselves out of place, they wouldn't fit with the pack properly and might try and mess with the dynamics.

"Make sense." Maria started calmly, "but why didn't you tell me the truth?" She asked, staring at them.

As soon as she asked them that, she knew the answer. They weren't sure if she would be more loyal to Fury or to them. Honesty, if Maria hadn't been turned, it was a ninety-nine percent chance that she would have told Fury the truth. Now? There was no chance, she could feel it in her bones that whilst she trusted Fury's judgement (most of the time) and was loyal to him as her leader, she wouldn't divulge pack information to him, especially something that could mix up their dynamics.

"We're sorry, but we had to be certain." Peggy said, looking apologetic at her.

Maria sighed, but nodded her understanding again. It sucked, plain and simple. Knowing that she was automatically excluded due to her position as well as knowing that without a doubt it was going to affect her in the future as well. Their team was led by Peggy Carter, notorious for going against orders or creating her own missions to suit her agenda. Maria supposed she was like one of the S.H.I.E.L.D grunts, throwing a spanner in the works. They never planned on someone being this close to Fury within the group.

"no, definitely not." Natasha said, with such conviction in her voice. Maria looked up in surprise.

"You're nothing like them, sure unexpected, but you definitely make this a lot easier, at least for me." Natasha moving closer to her. "I could never imagine what my pack would be like if you weren't in it. It's not even a full blown but it's the right place for you to be. Trust me. Think of all the people who are lined up to join us. You fit right in with them and if you hadn't been chosen to lead this operation, you would have been the first people on the list anyway."

"Damn right I would have, I'm a fucking delight." Maria joked, attempting to ease the sudden onslaught of love from Natasha.

"Yeah you are, sexy beast" Natasha said, understanding where Maria was taking this conversation. She also throw in an over exaggerated wink, just to seal the deal.

Maria grinned in appreciation at Natasha, finding her hand and squeezing it in thanks, mainly at the fact the subject was clearly going to be dropped.

' _For now. We'll talk about your panic attack at a later date, when you feel up to it._ ' Natasha reminded her quietly.

Well, at least it would be on her own terms, she thought to herself.

"If you lot are done being all mushy and feelings, Jayden thinks we have a potential led on the leaked information." Victoria drawled from where she was standing, next to the other alphas, huddled around a tablet displaying the information.

The three of them walked over to examine the information and Maria automatically groaned "Malta? I fucking hate Malta."


End file.
